My Rant About The Thurrock Council And All Things Government

I don't normally like to post about myself, or currents events, I tend to stick towards my favourite history subjects, but I've run out of them for the moment, anyways I'm thoroughly disgusted with our government here in the UK, I mean they really suck ass, if you ask me, we've been waiting on the Thurrock Council, to sort out just about everything in our house that's been wrong for the past 10 years or more since we moved here, to the Tilbury area, we've got major mould problems which probably doesn't help with all of the health problems that all my family member's have, and that includes me, we have a huge hole in the ceiling in my parents bedroom, and when in rains heavy it comes through the ceiling, we have to put a bowl underneath it, though the first time it happened my dad didn't figure it out until he went to bed, he had to turn over the mattress because it had completely ruined my parents memory foam mattress, which they had to get in the first place because it's the only one my mum find's soft enough to lay on because of her bad back, she had an operation done on it years ago, and she now has metal clip things in her back, he even shoved the bed completely towards the front of the room, and flip the mattress over, and he had work at like 7am the next morning as well, anyway we've also got windows that don't shut, we really need a new boiler in my sister's bedroom, which is where it's located, plus there's a window in my parents bedroom that's buggered, there's a hole in the wall in mine and my older sister's bedroom, so it get's really cold in there, we have a faulty heating fan in the bathroom, which only stays on for like 10 to 20 seconds before it decides to cut out, the council are supposed to be putting in two extractor fans from the outside which they still haven't done, they were supposed to come back and put up a small scaffolding to sort out the hole in the roof, where the rain keeps coming in, and last christmas our entire kitchen cabinet came right off the bleeding wall, and not 10 minutes before it did, my mum was standing out there with our cat Leo, and they could have seriously gotten hurt, as it is, a lot of things got smashed as well, oh and recently the front of our main kitchen draw came off in my mum's hands, so there's that as well, our taps both upstairs and down are both buggered as well, and it's been months since we heard from them, though before we contacted them this year, it had been a whole year since we had heard from them before, which is when we first put in for all these jobs to be fixed, and we put them in with the head guy as well, though I suspect most of the jobs that we need done, aren't being done because of the company that the Thurrock Council, have been using, called: Morrisons, not to be confused with the supermarket that is, apparently this company is really bad, they were mentioned before on one of those tv shows, by the don't get done get Dom guy, about how they were doing half assed jobs and sometimes not even finishing them, anyways enough about this for now, I have to go, I really hope that you enjoyed my rant, and you now have a new perspective on what lying gits the Thurrock Council can be!

Spectator In Hell

A British Soldier's Extraordinary Story

Arthur Dodd was born and raised in the Castle district of Norwich, a small Cheshire town on the River Weaver. His mother's first husband had been killed in the trenches of France during the First World War and had married his father, a regular soldier in the Cheshire Regiment, just after
Armistice Day. Arthur himself arrived on 7th December, 1919.

His father was an austere, distant man. He had served in the Boer war at the turn of the century and
as a sergeant had been captured during the Great War. As a parent, he was distinctly military and
Victorian in his attitude and had little time for Arthur and his younger sister.

At fifteen, Arthur left school and was taken on as an apprentice mechanic at Norwich Transport Company. There he learned to drive and began to understand the mechanics of the internal combustion engine under the watchful, friendly eye of his boss, Harold Isherwood.
For his labours he was paid all of ten shillings (50p) a week, but Arthur had already taken the first steps down the path that would lead him to Auschwitz.

The company owned a Ford People's Popular saloon car, which was used to transport mechanics to
broken-down lorries. Arthur fell in love with it the first time he saw it. It was in this car he had been taught to drive and, having added a year to his age when completing the driving license application form, he passed his test in the early part of 1935. A year later, he repeated the lie and passed his
HGV test.

Those early working days were fun for Arthur. Harold took to the young man and they would often go fishing together in one of the many meres in the Cheshire countryside. Arthur had to serve under
the Articles of Apprenticeship for seven years, but when Harold opened his own transport company
in 1937, he invited Arthur to finish his time with him.

Tempted though he was, ten shillings a week was hardly conducive to living away from home and
Arthur had to decline. His mother, too, was against it, as she was against the transport business in
general. In those days a driver had to find his own consignments and could be away from home for
as long as three weeks at a time.


In Harold's absence, Arthur quickly became bored and began looking for another company to take him on. When he was eighteen he entered the world of scrap, being employed as a driver by Jimmy Caffrey, a well respected, local entrepreneur. Caffrey only had the one vehicle and most of the work
was sub-contracted from the Middlewich Borough Council. Consequently, Arthur was home every night by tea-time and was paid the quite princely sum of £5 a week.

Anne Frank

A quarter of an hour later, someone knocked on the bookcase door. The knocking continued
and they could hear someone pulling and pushing at the door.
Then they learned what had happened. Johannes Kleiman explained that a carpenter was in
the house to check the fire extinguishers, and that he had not had time to warn them.
It was a great relief to the Frank family when the carpenter left.
Anne enjoyed writing very much and didn't confine herself to her diary. In 1943, she also
started writing a book titled ''Stories and Events from the Secret Annex''. This book included
descriptions of happenings in the Secret Annex and memories from Anne's schooldays, as
well as fairy tales and other imaginary tales, which she called ''Made-Up Stories''.
In the year 1944, Anne was more than 14 and a half years old. The group of eight people had
been hiding in the Secret Annex for a year and a half.
Anne had noticed that her thoughts and feelings were changing, and she wrote about this
in her diary.
She spent much more time thinking about all sorts of things. And also viewed the people with whom she was hiding in a new light. Anne also noticed that she was changing physically. Anne celebrated her fifteenth birthday on June 12, six days after the Normandy
invasion.
The families had been in the Secret Annex for almost two years. Despite the massive invasion, the liberation of Europe still seemed a long way away, to them, and life on the
Prinsengracht went on as casual.
On July 21, 1944, Anne was happy and optimistic. The news about the war seemed hopeful.
Eleven days later, she made one last entry in her diary. On August 4 between ten o'clock
and half past ten in the morning.
The German police stormed the Secret Annex. They had been betrayed.
This is the last entry that Anne made in her diary, Tuesday, August 1, 1944. Anne wrote that she thought it was a shame that the others in the Secret Annex only really knew one side of
her. She was often berated and criticized for that side, and not taken seriously by the adults
because of it.
I have already told you before that I have, as it were, a dual personality.
One half embodies my exuberant cheerfulness, making fun of everything, vivacity, and above
all the way I take everything lightly . . . This side is usually lying in wait and pushes away
the other, which is much better, deeper and purer.
No one knows Anne's better side.
Three days after Anne wrote this the German police entered the Secret Annex.
Who betrayed the hiding place to the Germans remains a mystery to this day.
The family spent four days locked in holding cells. Then on August 8 they were transferred to the Westerbork camp. They stayed there for the whole of the month of August in the so-called ''punishment barracks''. They were considered ''punishable prisoners'' since they had
not given themselves up when the call-up notices were sent but had been captured in hiding.
On September 3, 1944, the eight prisoners joined a thousand others on the last train bound
for the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.
They were cooped up in a boxcar for days, crammed together with about seventy other people, and arrived in Auschwitz on the night of September 5.
More than half of the people were killed in the gas chambers the very next day, including
nearly all the children under fifteen. Since Anne had just had her fifteenth birthday, she was
spared. The men and women were separated, most never to see each other again.
The women had to walk to the women's camp in Birkenau. Edith Frank and her two daughters stayed together.
Mrs. Van Pels also went to the women's camp. Otto Frank, Hermann Van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer went to the men's camp.
The conditions in Auschwitz were indescribably wretched. The prisoners were given hardly
anything to eat and no medicines were available.
Hundreds died from starvation and illness every day. The guards beat and clubbed people
to death for no reason at all. Every day new groups of prisoners were sent to the gas chambers. No one could be sure of his or her life. Every day could be the last.
Hermann Van Pels was murdered in the gas chambers a couple of weeks after his arrival in
Auschwitz - Birkenau. Fritz Pfeffer ended up in the Neuengamme concentration camp,
where he died on December 20, 1944.
The Russian Army was approaching from the west. The Germans knew that they had lost
the war. Many of the camps were cleared and dismantled in an effort to erase the evidence
of their crimes. Prisoners were shot and buried in mass graves. Others were transferred to
concentration camps farther from the front.
Anne and her sister Margot were taken to the Bergen-Belsen, concentration camp in October
1944. Anne and Margot died there in March 1945.
The camp was liberated the following month. Anne and Margot had to leave their mother
behind in Auschwitz at the end of October 1944.
Edith Frank survived in Auschwitz for another two months. She died on January 6, 1945.
Otto Frank was the only one of the group from the Secret Annex to survive the war.
He was still in Auschwitz when the Russians liberated the camp on January 27, 1945.
He wanted to go back to Amsterdam, but the war had not ended yet in the Netherlands.
Otto started the long journey home to the port of Odessa on the Black Sea.  From Odessa,
he went by boat to Marsailles in France, and continued by train and truck to Amsterdam.
Otto Frank did not arrive in Amsterdam until June 3, when he immediately went to see Miep and Jan Gies.
Their reunion was filled with joy and sadness. Otto Frank said he had heard that his wife,
Edith, was dead, but he still hoped that Anne and Margot were alive.
He had heard that they had been taken to Bergen-Belsen, and that at least Bergen-Belsen
was not a death camp.
Otto moved in with Miep and Jan, and together they searched daily for news about Anne
and Margot.
Almost two months later Otto received word that both his daughters had died.
All that time Miep had kept Anne's diaries, hoping to give them back to Anne herself.
As it was now certain that Anne was dead, Miep got out the diaries and gave them to Otto.
Otto started reading them immediately and was moved and astonished. He had never
realized that Anne had recorded everything that happened in the Secret Annex so well and
so accurately. Otto typed large parts of the diary in German and sent them to his mother
in Switzerland. Later he let other people read parts of the diary.
They urged him to look for a publisher, but no one wanted to publish the diary so soon
after the war.
It was only when an article appeared on Anne's diaries in the Dutch newspaper Het Parool
(The Motto) on April 3, 1946, that a publisher was found.
Anne Frank's diary was published in an edition of 1,500 copies in the summer of 1947.
Otto had now fulfilled Anne's wish to become a writer.
The diary was soon translated into French and then into German. In 1951, an English edition
was published. In the years that followed, the diary was translated into thirty-one other
languages. The diary became world-famous.
Throughout the world, streets and schools have been named after Anne Frank.
Anne Frank became a symbol of the six million Jewish men, women, and children who
were murdered by the Nazis in the Second World War.
Otto Frank spent the rest of his life spreading Anne's ideas and ideals. In 1979, one year before his death, he wrote: ''Anne never spoke about hatred anywhere in her diary. She wrote that despite everything, she believed in the goodness of people. And that when the
war was over, she wanted to work for the world and for people.

C

Introduction

In the forty-six years since it was first published and the fifty since it was written, the diary
of Anne Frank has taken a kind of mystical quality for the adolescents who first encounter
it and the adults are left with it's aftertaste.
I have not actually read Anne Frank's diary myself because it is very hard to get a hold of,
I would imagine all the time that just looking at pictures of the actual diary, shows that it
holds enormous power, so much that, with it's plaid cover and impotent little lock, I cannor
believe how much of a relic Anne Frank's diary is considered now.
The struggle for identity, the fears, the doubts, above all the everydayness in the diary entries, the worries about outgrown shoes, the romantic yearnings, and the ever-present
conflicts with Mama and Margot reflect, mirror, and elevate the lives of millions who went about the business of studying, romancing, cooking, sewing, and struggling to live in the
world until the Nazis ended their millions of ordinary, individual lives.
We know Anne Frank the victim and Anne Frank the fugitive. This is Anne Frank the free,
the living, the person who was able to write what has become a life lesson for millions of
us in the years since: 'In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart''.
We see the diary with all it's teenage blemishes, not transcribed neatly on the page but packed with pasted pictures, scribbled and haphazard, the work of a girl, not a symbol,
not a metaphor. As we grew and as the legend grew as well, Anne Frank had in some essential way ceased to be an ordinary person.
The pictures that were taken of her, make her whole again: one little Jewish girl, one life growing, thriving, struggling to break the surface of it's soil like a seedling just at the time
that the soil was poisoned. The failed flowering means more with the seeds. Seeing the
baby Anne, the smiling Anne, the free Anne, makes her life all that much more ordinary.
And that much more heroic and heartbreaking.
- Laura Ward.

The Frank Family.

Members of the Frank family have lived in Frankfurt am Main since the 17th century.
Otto Frank is born on 12 May 1889 In the city's Westend, a well - to - do neighbourhood.
After attending high school, he briefly studies art at the University of Heidelberg.
Then, via a friend, he is offered and accepts a job from 1908 to 1909 in the United States,
at Macy's Department Store in New York. After the death of his father, a banker, Otto returns to Germany and works for a metal engineering company in Dusseldorf until 1914.
During World War I, Otto and his two brothers serve in the German army, where Otto attains the rank of lieutenant.
After the war he works in his father's bank, but banks are not doing well at that time. It is
during this period, however, that Otto meets his future wife, Edith Hollander, the daughter
of a manufacturer. Edith is born in 1900 and grows up in Aachen. In 1925, Otto and Edith
marry and settle in Frankfurt.
Their first daughter, Margot Betti, is born on 16 February 1926.
Her younger sister, Anne, whose full name is Annelise Marie Frank, is born in Frankfurt am Main on 12 June 1929.
Otto Frank is an enthusiast amateur photographer. He takes dozens of photographs of Anne
and Margot playing in the street with their friends, visiting their granparents in Aachen, or
going to the countryside.

The Frank Family in Amsterdam, 1933-40.

Following Hitler's rise to power and the anti-Jewish boycott, Otto Frank leaves Frankfurt
for Amsterdam in 1933. He starts a Dutch branch of the Opekta Company there, manufacturing products used in jam-making, such as pectin.

Soon Edith, Margot, and Anne join him.
The Frank family moves into a house on Merwedeplein in the southern part of the city.
The girls attend the Montessori School nearby and make lots of friends - photographs document their many outings.
The family also becomes close friends with other Jewish immigrants who settle in their neighbourhood.
The Opekta Company is doing rather well. However, this relatively carefree life is suddenly
interrupted by the German invasion in May 1940.

The Frank Family Goes Into Hiding.

Formally Otto Frank turns his business into a non-Jewish firm but he remains in charge
behind the scenes. Until the summer holidays of 1942, Anne and Margot attend the Jewish
Lyceum, a school for Jewish children banned from other schools.
The Franks get ready to go into hiding in 1941. Thanks to the help of his staff at the Opekta
Company (Victor Kugler, Jo Kleiman, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl), Otto Frank is able to
prepare a secret place for his own family and that of another employee Hermann van Pels -
in the two upper back floors of the old building his firm occupies.

On 5 July 1942, Margot Frank receives the notorious call to report to a 'labour camp'.
The Franks move into the Secret Annex - concealed behind a movable bookcase - at 263 Prinsengracht the following day.
One week later, they are joined by Mr and Mrs van Pels and their son Peter, and finally,
in November, by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist.
In her diary, given to her by her father on her 13 birthday, 12 June 1942, Anne Frank movingly records the experiences of everyday life in hiding.
After a while, she decides to write her diary entries in the form of letters, addressed to
'Kitty' - a character in a novel she had once enjoyed. Later, after hearing a radio broadcast
saying that letters and diaries about life under German occupation might be published
after the war, Anne decides to edit and revise her diary.
She makes it more like a novel, changing the names of her 'characters'. Kugler and Kleiman
become Kraler and Koophuis, the van Pelses become the van Daans, Pfeffer becomes Mr Dussel, and Bep Voskuijl becomes Elli Vossen.

The Last Months of the Frank Family.

On 4 August 1944, the Secret Annex is raided by SS Sergeant Karl Josef Silberbauer, with
several Dutch Nazis. Everyone is arrested and sent to Westerbork transit camp and then
on the final train that leaves for Auschwitz on 3 September 1944.

The Best Birthday Present.

Anne Frank awoke at six o'clock in the morning on Friday, June 12. She could hardly wait
to get out of bed. That she was up so early was not surprising, since today was her thirteenth
birthday. It was wartime, 1942. Anne was living with her father and mother and her sister,
Margot, who was three years older than Anne, in a housing development in Amsterdam,
the capital city of the Netherlands. The Netherlands had been occupied for two years by the
Germans, who has launched a campaign of discrimination and persecution against the Jews.
It was becoming increasingly difficult for Jews such as the Frank family to lead ordinary lives, but Anne was not thinking about that on her birthday.
At seven o'clock Anne went up to her parents' bedroom. Then the whole family gathered in
the living room to unwrap Anne's presents.
Anne received many gifts that day, including books, a jigsaw puzzle, a brooch, and candy.
But her best present was one given by her parents that morning:
A hardcover diary. bound in red and white checkered cloth. She had never had a diary before
and she was delighted with the gift. Anne had many friends, both boys and girls, but with
them she talked only about everyday things.
But now Anne's diary would be her very best friend, a friend she could trust with everything.
She called her new friend ''Kitty''.
On the first page of her diary Anne wrote:
I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do in anyone
before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me.
Anne Frank (June 12, 1942).
On the side of the cover she stuck a photograph of herself.
Anne started writing to kitty two days later, on Sunday, June 14. She would continue filling
it for over two years with her thoughts and feelings, and stories about all the things that
happened to her. But on that first day, she could not suspect how her life was suddenly to
change completely.
Nor could she imagine that later millions of people throughout the world would read her
diary.

From Frankfurt to Amsterdam.

Anne Frank was born in the German city of Frankfurt am Main on June 12, 1929.
In 1939 Anne's Interests were different from those she had when she was younger they
were laughing, history, movie stars, Greek mythology, writing, cats, dogs, and boys.
She had a large circle of friends and enjoyed going to parties with them and to the ice-cream
parlor called Oasis in her neighbourhood. Anne attended the Montessori school in 1941,
it was her last year in grade school.
After the summer holidays in 1941, Jewish children learned that they would no longer be
allowed to go to the school of their choice. From then on, schools were segregated between
Jewish and non-Jewish children.
Anne and Margot now went to a Jewish school with only Jewish teachers. But this was only
the beginning. Anne later wrote in her diary: There have been all sorts of Jewish laws.
Jews must wear a yellow star; Jews must hand in their bicycles. Jews are banned from trams
and are forbidden to use any car, even a private one; Jews are only allowed to do their shopping between three and five o'clock, and then only in shops which bear the placard
Jewish shop; Jews may only use Jewish barbers; Jews must be indoors from eight o'clock
in the evening until six o'clock in the morning . . .
But life went on in spite of it all. Jacque used to say to me: 'You're scared to do anything
because it may be forbidden''.

''Dear Kitty''.

Anne was given her diary on her thirteenth birthday, June 12, 1942. Two days later, she
began writing in it about her family, her friends, and her school. That June she had a new
friend to write about: Hello Silberberg. He was sixteen and Anne thought he was very handsome. Anne was enjoying life and preferred not to dwell on the war. But such thoughtlessness was dangerous for Jews, as an incident on Monday, June 29, made clear.
Toward the end of that afternoon, Hello came to visit Anne at home and meet her parents.
In October 1, 1942, the Frank family moved into the Annexe, it was on the same floor as
most of the office buildings, there hiding place behind the walls.
Days passed, turned into weeks and then months. During the daytime when the staff of the
office was working, the Franks and Van Pelses could only whisper and had to walk around
very softly in their stocking feet.
No one in the Secret Annexe was allowed to use the faucet or toilet between the office hours
of nine o'clock in the morning and seven o'clock in the evening.
Anne would spend a lot of time studying her schoolbooks, a large pile of which had been
taken along.
Anne, too, found her new life difficult. She had lost everything: Her friends, her school,
her freedom. Sometimes she rebelled, and sometimes sadness would overtake her and she
often cried at night. But during the day she was different: lively and boisterous, and usually
surprisingly cheerful.
She had something to say about everything and everyone, and was always ready with a quick answer.
Anne felt truly alone and misunderstood. Her diary had become her one really good friend.
Most of the time life in the Annex was simply boring. Yet there was also moments of great
excitement and great fear.
One evening at eight o'clock the bell suddenly rang loudly. Everyone was terrified. They thought it might've been the German police, or the Gestapo? They were worried that it
would never end? They would all hold their breaths. But there was no more noise.
Three weeks later, a more frightening experience occurred.
From the landing opposite the bookcase came the sound of hammering. All talk inside the
Annex immediately ceased.

A Bit of Everything and Nothing At All

I thought that for once it might be a good idea to keep an online diary, as opposed to a written one, I mean I do love the sensation of having a pen in my hand and hearing the sound of the gel pen scratch against the page when the pen starts to run out, their's nothing like it, it's like when you read a really old book, and you hear the pages make that crinkle sound, and you can smell the musty odour on the pages, anyway enough about that, I wish things were different and we could win the lottery or at least a few thousands pounds, enough to sort out all our bills, and be able to pay off my credit card bill, and get myself an Alienware laptop, because it's the ultimate gaming laptop, I wouldn't need to get another one, I've had a really bad stomach all day long, well I had one this morning, but it settled down once I'd been to the toilet, but then when I ate my second sandwich, it kicked off even worse, and I couldn't even manage my third because of it, anyway I've finally started watching a few of my films that I've had backlogged since christmas, and even before christmas when I put a load of films into my pink disc case to watch, II've still got quite a few to watch in there as well, and I intend to re-watch the first 3 Underworld films, as soon as I can get a decent download of: Underworld Awakening, I can't wait to see it, apparently Selene wakes up in the future and she can't find Michael anywhere, and apparently the humans know all about the vampires and lycans and their trying to eradicate them all, by mass genocide I suppose you'd call it, anyway I might go up the library tomorrow, or I could potentially wait and ask dad if he could take me to Corringham, because I need to get a couple of bottles of Schwepps lemonade, to tide me over until mum + dad go shopping again, and I also need to go into Tesco's again and get one of those huge boxes of Thornton's the Classic Collection box, for mum + dad's wedding anniversary, which is on the 4th February, I decided upon that box of chocolate's mainly because I couldn't think of anything else, and because when aunt Jane bought them a box for christmas to share between them, and it so happens that it was the same box that I bought for nan + grandad for christmas as well, lol, great minds think alike I guess, anyway I finally watched: Super 8, last night, it was really good, I liked the way they made the alien in it, anyway I better go for now, I left: Johnny Mnemonic, on pause, and I'm right near the end, so bye for now.

Victorian Pharmacy

This established a rigorous system of apprenticeship, typically lasting years. If the cost of training to become a physician was prohibitive to all but a privileged few, the cost of an apprenticeship to an apothecary was still considerable; in the firts half of the nineteenth century these typically were set at around 500 guineas (£28,000 in today's money). Oral examinations were conducted by members of the society to ensure the candidate was proficient in recognising ingredients as well as in the craft of handling and mixing medicines. It was only after the exam had been passed that the newly qualified apothecary could own or keep a shop. Between 1815 and 1834, six thousand new apothecaries' licenses were issued, half to surgeons who were allowed to have the dual role of apothecary and surgeon. Apothecaries did not have the social standing or wealth of the physicians, who commanded large fees from their well-to-do customers. Instead, they offered healthcare services to everyone - as was true throughout history; the first record of an apothecary's shop dates ro 1345. During the Civil War (1642-49), when the rich fled the cities and were followed by their physicians, the apothecaries remained to tend to the people. Again, when the Great Plague hit London in 1665, it was the apothecaries who dared to stay. The Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) wrote in 1790 that apothecaries were 'the physicians of the poor at all times and the rich when the danger is not very great.' From early in the eighteenth century apothecaries were legally ratified as members of the medicinal profession. Their role developed from dispenser of medicene, to practitioner and dispenser of medicine as they were allowed to prescribe medicines, a progression the physicians were busy defending their position in the market, new traders called chemists and druggists recognised a lucrative gap in the market and slipped in to steal a portion of the trade. This sparked the fury of both physicians and apothecaries, who accused the interlopers of muscling in on their territory, generating even more ill-feeling.
Each group bickered with the other, fighting for business and professional recognition and undermining specialised professional development. Indeed, the only thing they appeared to agree about was the exclusion of women from any medical profession. However, the Apothecaries Act of 1815 gave tacit approval to the apothecary's new role of general practitioner of medicine. It also recognised the right of chemists and druggists to prepare, compound, dispense and sell drugs and medicines. The emergence of chemists and druggists marked the true start of the pharmacy industry. They had first appeared towards the end of the eighteenth century and spread with the increase in urbanisation offering customers a reliable outlet for the purchase of over-the-counter medicines. They stayed open for long hours and were available in emergencies, meeting the needs of a population which, far from fields, hedgerows and cottage gardens, no longer had access to the raw materials they needed for homemade remedies. Moreover, despite the furore, they were not breaking any rules, since there was no regulations for the sale of deadly poisons, such as arsenic, or addictive, over-the-counter medicines, such as laudanum, they were free to muscle in on the market. These interlopers also supplied all manner of ready-made 'proprietary' medicines: miracle cures such as Clarke's Blood Mixture, 'The World Famous Blood Purifier and Restorer'; or Burgess's Lion Ointment, 'Amputation avoided - the knife superseded.' Chemists and druggists were not required to have dispensing qualifications. At best, they might have undertaken an apprenticeship with an apothecary, but there was no requirement for them to pass any exams. They were not permitted to prescribe as apothecaries could. Unofficially, though, they engaged in 'counter practice', recommending products for various ailments, or hurrying their customer away to seek the advice of an apothecary or physician post-haste. A bill introduced in 1841 proposed that after 1 February 1842 no person could practice medicine without a certificate, and that after December 1842 no one could carry out the business of a chemist or druggist without a certificate. Practising medicine was defined as recommending, prescribing or ordering any medicine, remedy or application, while the chemist and druggist was defined as a person able to dispense or mix for sale any drug or medicine. However, the bill failed to get support in the House of Commons. The group behind the bill did not give up the fight. In 1841, they proposed the formation of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (PSGB), whose function was to elevate the status of the practice of pharmacy. It aimed to head a defined and regulated programme of professional education and to unite the profession into one body. Chemists and druggists instead of being excluded, as they had always previously been, were invited to participate in the formation of the Society. Within two years, the Pharmaceutical Society had established a School of Pharmacy and had won a royal charter (1843). The title 'Royal' was granted to the society in 1988.
Legislation from 1852 established a Register of Pharmaceutical Chemists for those who had passed The Pharmaceutical Society's exams. It is at this time that the terms pharmaceutical chemist, pharmacist and pharmacy begin to enter into popular usage - the first recorded use of the word in England does not appear until the 1830s. While its use indicates the attainment of formal professional
standards, the public then, as now, mixed the terms chemist, druggist and pharmacy freely to describe a shop that sold medicines. The Medical Act of 1858 saw the faltering beginnings of a much needed process of reform; formal programmes of education were laid down to ensure that students achieved minimum standards of competence in medicine, surgery and midwifery. Regulations controlling the sale and compounding of medicines followed behind. The Pharmacy Act of 1868 restricted sale, dispensing and compounding of poisons to people who had been examined and registered by the PSGB. At this time the term 'Chemist and Druggist' was used by the PSGB to describe those who had passed its minor examination and therefore met with the minimum requirement to register as a pharmacist and the use of the title 'chemist and druggist' was restricted to legally registered pharmacists. The formation of the Pharmaceutical Society in 1841 also saw the launch of The Pharmaceutical Journal, a monthly with a firm emphasis on pharmaceutical education and science, until 1870 when it became weekly. The Chemist & Druggist, a monthly trade circular, was launched in competition in 1859, it was more popularist in approach, and included regular features on the trade prices of medicinal compounds, court reports detailing many mishaps from accidentally poisoning to bankruptcy. A popular feature was the exchange of recipes.

Despite legislative controls standards were not what we might expect today. As late as 1899, (1850-1931), the man who established Boots the Chemist, commented:

I thoroughly welcome legislation that will compel every chemist's and druggist shop, whether belonging to a company or otherwise, to be wholly and solely under the control of a registered chemist or manager. I will go further than that, and state that I should be equally glad to welcome that legislation should enforce the work of dispensing medicines should also be confined in every shop to a registered chemist.

At the turn of the century, Jesse Boot advocated a new approach. He himself had had no prospect of becoming a qualified pharmacist since his family lacked the funds. He instigated a scheme to recruit and support promising boys through an apprenticeship, and paid them 10 shillings (10/-) weekly in the first year of apprenticeship, 12 shillings and sixpence (12/6) in the second, 15/-in the third, and 17/6 in the fourth. Assistants who had worked for Boot for more than two years were eligible to compete for four scholarships offered annually, to enable them to take six-month full-time course at a recognised school of pharmacy and to sit the Minor examination. Jesse Boot commented:

Formerly the drug trade was one that could only be enetered into by those having money and friends. With us a good salary is given during apprenticeship, scholarships to our assistants, and after passing their examinations good and improving situations are found for them. To me the most satisfactory feature of our business is that we have men on the staff who have passed their qualifying examination with credit, and for this not to have cost their parents or friends a penny.

Boot also encouraged chemists to give young assistants a lesson in Latin before they started work at 8 a.m. and provided training for dispensing assistants.
In the 64-year reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), there were revolutionary breakthroughs in the understanding and treatment of many life-threatening diseases, as well as in education and laws relating to healthcare and the provision of medicines and poisons. Consumer medicine reached the high street, creating a new medical industry that sold traditional herbal remedies as well as the newest proprietary medicines and which played a role in transforming public health. Sir Joseph Swan (1828-1914), physicist, chemist and inventor of the incandescent electric light bulb, maintained that an educated pharmacist was 'one of society's most useful and necessary members.'

Victorian Pharmacy

                                                       HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS

People wanting their teeth pulled, or to be bled, might visit a barber, or even a surgeon, who combined skills in hairdressing, dentistry, blood-letting and surgery. Surgeons were craftsmen, who learned their skills in long apprenticeships. It was easier to become a surgeon than a physician because a would-be surgeon needed only to rause sufficient funds for an apprenticeship. By 1800, there were 8000 members of the Royal College of Surgeons. Physicians, on the other hand, required a university education - an expensive business, which restricted access to the profession. Theoretically they were the most knowledgeable practitioners. In an era when it was rare for the sick to attend hospital, physicians made home visits, diagnosing illness and prescribing treatments. They were not, however, permitted to act as surgeons, or to dispense drugs. Indeed, physicians were often quite ignorant of the properties of the drugs they prescribed. There were far fewer practising physicians than surgeons or apothecaries: at the start of the nineteenth century, there were just 179 licensed physicians in London; by 1847, there were 643. Each might expect to earn between £1500 and £2000 per year - £88,000-117,000 in today's money. The Victorian apothecary was a cross between a General Practitioner and a dispensing chemist. But his shop was like nothing we would recognise. There were no tempting displays of medicines, herbs or other sundries - medicines were made to order.
The business of selling medicines and drugs was not a licensed activity. Indeed, grocers prescribed medicines, booksellers sold proprietary medicines, and the mail-order business in patent pills, creams and medicines was booming.

                                                                       FIRST AID KIT

                                                           Press an ivy leaf on a cut - the rough side cleans
                                                           the wound and the smooth side helps to heal it;
                                                           eat an onion (raw), if one is unfortunate enough
                                                           to be stung by a wasp in the throat; a soap and
                                                           sugar poultice will draw out a splinter.

                                                                    OIL OF EARTHWORMS

                                                       A useful linament for muscular aches and pains.

                                                                           Dried earth worms 7 oz
                                                                           Olive oil 32 fl oz
                                                                            Wine 2 fl oz

                                                                    Boil together until wine has evaporated.
                                                                    Apply by rubbing the oil into the skin.

                                                           ATTEMPTS AT REGULATION

All those involved in the dispensing of drugs - apothecaries, chemists and druggists - relied on the ever-increasing number of pharmacopoeias available to learn about the latest treatments and practices. New substances were continually being uncovered. In the early past of the nineteenth century, morphine, quinine and strychnine appeared for the first time.
One of the main sources of information for physicians and apothecaries were herbals and pharmacopeia' both offering reference sources on the medicinal properties of plants and minerals. The first London Pharmacopoeia was not published until 1618 when a royal proclamation instructed all apothecaries follow its guide. From 1846, all the various pharmacopoeia editions - London, Edinburgh and Dublin - were absorbed into the single authoritative voice of the British Pharmacopoeia. Unfortuneately, there was still such ignorance of the causes of disease that many of the so-called cures were mere panaceas. Nicholas Culpeper's books, The English Physitian (1652) and The Complete Herbal (1653) were radical in that both were published in vernacular English and were designed to be self-help books for use by the poor who could not afford medical help, though doubtless those who would benefit the most were not literate enough to do so. Nevertheless Culpeper's books are said to be the most successful non-religious text ever and have been in print continuously since the seventeenth century. They provoked fury in both physicians and apothecaries alike who saw the work as a threat to their lucrative business. But then Culpeper was highly critical of physician's skills: 'They are bloodsuckers, true vampires, have learned little since Hippocrates; use blood-letting for ailments above the midriff and purging for those below. They evacuate and revulse their patients until they faint. Black Hellebor, this poisonous stuff, is a favourite laxative. It is surprising that they are so popular and that some patients recover. My own poor patients would not endure this taxing and costly treatment. The victims of physicians only survive since they are from the rich and robust stock, the plethoric, red-skinned residents of Cheapside, Westminster and St James.'

                                                                          Stramonium

The Dratorium stramonium cultivated in Britain. The leaves dried, collected when the plants are in flower, and the ripe seeds. Medicinal Properties: Influences especially the respiratory organs. Much used in asthma; the leaf chiefly by smoking in the form of cigarettes. The extract and the tincture made of the seeds are used in convulsive coughs as antispasmodics and as anodynes in gastrodynia and other painful affections.

Apothecaries were responsible for the supply, compounding and sale of drugs, and this was how they madde their living. They could also make home visits, provide medical advice and prescribe medication, but could not charge for this service. They had established their independence from the Company of Grocers in 1617 when King James I permitted the creation of The Worshipful Society of the Art and Mystery of the Apothecaries.

Victorian Pharmacy

                                                                Public Health

At the start of Queen Victoria's reign, the public had long been in the habit of self-medicating. This was partly because of the scarcity of public health provision, but principally because most people simply did not have the pennies to spare on physicians or apothecaries. Many people, notably the working class, had a deep mistrust of physicians, whose cures were often as bad, if not worse, than the original problem. Illnesses were managed rather than cured, and it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that real advances were made in the understanding of the causes of ill health, as well as its management and treatment. Medical thinking was still dominated by the theories of Hippocrates (460-c.370 BC). He suggested that illness was caused by an imbalance in the four humors - blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. This approach began to be revised only after 1860. Treatments to 'rebalance the humours' and clear the 'miasma of bad air' were vigorous - and not for the faint-hearted. The principal therapy was blood-letting, but purging and laxative treatments were popular, as were enemas and blistering plasters. The latter were applied to various parts of the body with the intent of causing irritation to the skin; it was common, for example, to fix them behind the ears as a means of alleviating toothache. Medicenes and ointments frequently contained highly toxic substances such as antimony, mercury and arsenic. These tortuous therapies were commonplace and left patients debilitated or created an addiction. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) remarked that medicene is 'a collection of uncertain prescriptions the results of which, taken collectively, are more fatal than useful to mankind.'

                                                           Blistering Ointment

                                                  Cantharides in coarse powder 600 grammes 
                                                        Powdered euphorbium 200 grammes
                                             Black pitch and yellow resin, of each 400 grammes
                                                                    Yellow wax 300 grammes
                                                                    Olive oil 1000 grammes

Mix the wax, pitch and resin at a gentle heat; add the oil, constantly stirring; strain through cloth. Put the cantharides and the euphorbium in the vessel and damp with water. Add, little by little, half the resinous mixture, and heat to evaporate the water. Then add the rest of the mixture; heat for a few seconds; withdraw from the fire, and stir well till quite cold.

                                                         The Cities And Disease

The living conditions in Victorian Britain gave rise to many of the underlying health problems. Of particular significance was the huge shift from rural to urban life. In 1801, only one-fifth of the population lived in towns and cities; by 1850, the figure had risen to approximately half of the population; and by 1901, the ratio had shifted again with four-fifths residing in urban enviroments. Towns and cities offered employment and escape from rural poverty, but conditions were shocking. 
Rapid urban development had been unregulated, and the ramshackle, severely overcrowded housing left inhabitants more susceptible to infectious diseases. Access to fresh water was limited, with water companies providing a supply only two to three times a week for just a few hours at any one time. This was a situation that did not improve until halfway through Victoria's reign: it was not until 1870 that a continuous supply of water was made available to Londoners for the first time, though for the majority of people this still meant using a street pump. Refuse was either stored in the home or left in piles for the scavengers' cart to collect. The dustbin did not make an appearance in Britain until after 1900. As well as being littered with rubbish, the streets were full of horse manure, so there were flies everywhere in summer. The removal of horse manure was almost as big a problem as that of human waste. Indeed, the management of human sewage was primitive: latrines and cesspits were common, and in the towns and cities a night soil collector made the rounds for those who used only pails. Tons and tons of human waste were removed from the city and despatched to the countryside by boat or train, where it was spread on the fields, thus neatly extending the range of waterborne diseases. The first public water closets were seen at The Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851. To use them, you had to spend a penny - hence the phrase. Theoretically, flush toilets resolved the sewage dilemma, albeit for only the fortunate few. But the disposal of flushed waste was no more ethical; it was pumped into the sewer, and then directed straight into the nearest river - the source of drinking water. As a result, and typhoid, waterborne diseases, were transmitted through contaminated faeces - a fact that was not recognized until the 1850s. Legislation to improve London's water supply was implemented in 1855, and for the first time water was drawn from outside the city and filtered. The government was forced to take further action after the Great Stink of 1858. In an unusually hot summer, the River Thames and its tributaries overflowed with raw sewage creating an unbearable stench. The following year, the civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette (1819-1891) started work on the construction of the central London sewage system. The rest of the country followed London's lead to improve water quality, at least in the towns, after 1870.

Lemon Wash Balls

A lovely lemon-scented soap for handwashing clothing.

Cut 6lbs of soap into very small pieces; melt it into a pint of water in which 6 lemons have been boiled. When melted, withdraw the soap from the fire and add 3lbs of powdered starch and a little essence of lemon; knead the whole into a paste and form into balls of the required size.

Malnourishment And Pollution

But if water supplies and water quality are not what we are used to today, neither was the food. There was little legislation to control the sale of consumables: meat was often rotten and foodstuffs contaminated with dangerous additives as manufacturers competed to produce the cheapest goods. Bakers added alum or chalk to their flour, and mashed potatoes, plaster of Paris or sawdust to increase the weight of their loaves. Brewers added bitter substances, such as strychnine, to their beer to improve taste and save on the cost of hops. People developed a taste for adulterated food, and even principled purveyors were forced to adopt less upright practices because consumers complained that their food didn't 'taste right' without the additives. Legislative controls were not implemented until the Food, Drink and Drugs Act of 1872. Many working class families were therefore malnourished. Women and children suffered the worst with a diet comprising of bread, margarine and tea with sugar. A survey conducted by Charles Booth over a period of 17 years, and published in 1889, revealed that 35 per cent of London's population lived in abject poverty. Surveys from other cities revealed much the same picture. The memoir Mrs John Brown: 1847-1935 describes a typical tragedy from the late 1800s:

In the bed was a young woman, wan and dazed. She was holding a week-old baby to her empty breast. It was so pitiful I did not know what to say. 'I thought there were two children.' 'There was three days to ago,' the woman said. 'Show her, Jem.' The man got up heavily and opened the bottom drawer of a rickety chest, and there lay a little dead child of about two. I gasped. He said, 'We be waiting for the parish to come and bury her.' The mother said, 'We couldn't put her upstairs, alone, in the empty room.' I stood still, sobbing, but the parents shed no tears, nor said a word, except when Jem closed the drawer. 'She were a nice little lass, she were,' he said.

Pollution was a further problem. The air in towns and cities was heavy with smoke from coal fires, which provided the only means of cooking, hot water and heating. It has been estimated that about two-and-a-half million tons of soot were produced annually by domestic consumption alone. This made day-to-day life squalid and dirty for most people, no matter how hard they might try to keep up appearances. More importantly, the soot contributed to the famous London fogs, or London Peculiars, where visibility was reduced to a couple of feet. They were not, however, limited to the capital; towns all over Britain were plagued by them. The fog was thick and brownish yellow in colour, with a sulphurous, sooty, smoky smell. Unlike most fogs, they did not diminish as the sun rose, but became thicker. Horse-drawn coaches and omnibuses had to be led by men carrying torches to warn of their approach. The respiratory diseases that followed were a major source of ill-health and death. In December 1873, the Medical Times and Gazette described a recent fog as 'one of the most disastrous this generation has known. . . . To persons with cardiac and respiratory disease it has in numerous instances proved fatal.' The fogs would not abate until the 1960s. Indeed, the last of the great London fogs went on for four days in December 1952, and is estimated to have killed 4000 people.
This air pollution was also implicated in the high incidence of rickets. Children were more susceptible to this nutritional disease, because thick pollution reduces exposure to sunlight. Rickets were first noted in Britain back in the 1600s, but by the nineteenth century it was widespread. The disease causes softening of the bones, leading to fractures and deformity. A survey undertaken by the British Medical Association in the 1880s revealed a sharp difference between the high incidence of rickets in the urban centres and its virtual absence from small towns, villages and the countryside.
Curiously, bread was implicated. The incidence of rickets was higher in the smoky south because coal was expensive, meaning that it was cheaper for people to buy their bread. Commercially prepared bread was commonly adulterated with alum, an ingredient believed to increase susceptibility to rickets. In the smoky north, where bread was home-baked, children were less susceptible to the disease.

                                                                     SELF-HELP

In the second quarter of the nineteenth century, it began to dawn on doctors and scientists that this devastating combination of enviromental problem was the root cause of many epidemics.
Progress was slow, however, and the sick face a dilemma: to bankrupt themselves consulting a qualified physician or apothecary, who anyway had little real understanding of disease; or to consult a chemist and druggist for a fraction of the price. For the most of the nineteenth century, the chemist and druggist, or pharmacist, was the main source of medical provision for poor and rich alike.
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, first published in 1859, gives some idea of the lengths to which the ordinary housewife was prepared to go when it comes to First Aid. She was advised to keep the following items at home in case of emergenices:

The London illustrated News of 1847 reveals the severity of the thick, sulphurous fogs which caused many deaths.

Antimonial Wine, Antimonial Powder, Blister Compound, Blue Pill, Calomel, Carbonate of Potash, Compound Iron Pills, Nitre, Oil of Turpentine, Opium (powdered), Laudanum, Sal-Ammoniac, Senna Leaves, Soap Liniment, Opoldeldoc, Sweet Spirits of Nitre, Turner's Cerate. To which should be added: Common Adhesive Plaster, Isinglass Plaster, Lint, a pair of small Scales with Weights, an ounce and a drachm Measure-glass, a Lancet, a Probe, a pair of Forceps, and some curved Needles.

Many of these medicenes contain lead, mercury and antimony, all of which are highly toxic. As for the forceps and needles, the average housewife was equipping herself with the means to haul a baby into the world, and to stitch up a wound, should the occasion demand. It's an approach more robust than that of the shrinking violet more commonly associated with Victorian womanhood. And it's approach that was cultivated out of necessity. Even amongst what we would now call healthcare professionals, there was still very little real understanding of the cause of illness and disease - and only a rather hazy understanding of anatomy. Healthcare was a private business, a commercial enterprise like any other and it operated much as it had for centuries. (There was no National Health Service until 1948). The only free medical care came from charity hospitals, such as the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead and some teaching hospitals. Friendly Societies sprang up in the late eighteenth century. Members made regular payments in return for which they received help with the cost of paying for a doctor or, indeed, for a funeral. By the end of the ninteenth century, there were more than 30,000 Friendly Societies, which offered working men and women some security in times of need and protected them from debt through illness, death or old age.

British History - Tudors & Stuarts 1485 - 1714

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

On December 15th, 1620 a very different colony was established father north by just over 100 English Puritan farmers and craftsmen. These colonists became known as the Pilgrim Fathers. They were seeking a place where they could worship without persecution. They left Plymouth in a ship called the Mayflower and dropped anchor off Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The colony flourished when native American farmers taught the settlers how to grow corn (maize). In the autumn of 1621 they held their first harvest supper. They feasted on geese, turkeys, duck, shellfish, watercress and wine and invited the native Americans to the first Thanksgiving Day. That day, towards the end of November, is now a national holiday in the United States. Families and neighbours meet together to share the traditional Thanksgiving meal of turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.

THE EARLY SETTLERS

The first settlers' houses were built of wood, of which there was plenty in the surrounding fortress. The roofs were made of thatch and later of thin sheets of hardwood called shingle. The first chimneys were made of stone and later of brick. The colonists' life was hard: they spun thread, wove cloth, and tanned leather for jackets and shoes, and made candles from fat or beeswax. Although there was plenty of land to grow crops and they were free from religious persecution life was tough for these first settlers so that even after ten years, their colony still numbered only about 300 people.

In 1636, Roger Williams established a permanent settlement at Providence, Rhode Island (the smallest state in the United States). Williams was a Puritan minister who was driven out of Massachusetts because he accused the Puritans of not being tolerant enough. Williams bought the land from two native American Narragansett chiefs. Setting up a new colony held many dangers - land had to be cleared, even in the harsh winter, and supplies were scarce. However, by 1643 there were four settlements in Rhode Island which united in 1663.

The Mayflower took 102 Puritan colonists and 47 crew safely across the Atlantic. The ship was only about 30 metres long and 6 metres wide. The height of the space below deck was only one metre (high enough for a small child) and there were no portholes. Here the men, women and children rolled about and were sick as the ship was tossed around by the ocean swell for two months. The only water available for washing was sea water. Nevertheless, only one colonist and four crew died on the epic voyage.

1620: Pilgrim Fathers sail from Plymouth to colonize America. They arrive at Cape Cod and found the Plymouth Colony.

1621: James I calls third Parliament: it votes money for English involvement in Thirty Years War. Great Protestation asserts the rights of Parliament; petition against Catholicism.

1623: George Villiers, Jame's favourite, becomes Duke of Buckingham. Charles and Duke of Buckingham fail to negotiate Spanish marriage. First English settlement in New Hampshire.

1624: James calls fourth Parliament. Marriage arranged between Charles and Henrietta Maria of France.

1625: James dies: succeeded by Charles I. Charles marries Henrietta Maria. Parliament votes customs' duties for king for one year only.

1626: Charles summons second Parliament which impeaches Buckingham and is dissolved. War with France. Charles collects taxes without Parliament's approval.

1628: Charles calls his third Parliament: MPs present Petition of Right, and oppose king's collction of taxes.

CHARLES I

ON JAMES I'S DEATH IN 1625, his son Charles I inherited a difficult financial situation. Parliament believed that ''the King should live of his own'', meaning that money from taxes and Crown lands should pay all government expenses, and also the expenses of the Court.
It was usual for Parliament to vote a new sovereign money for life in the form of customs duties. However, James I had found expenses rising faster than income. This was partly due to inflation, caused by the arrival of gold and silver from the Americas. James resorted to a variety of methods to raise money, including creating the title of baronet and selling it to wealthy candidates. Irritated at Charles's attempts to ignore them, Members of Parliament voted taxes to Charles for one year only. Charles had a constant struggle to find money by other means to finance himself. Finally he raised taxes without Parliament's consent, but this led to a bitter conflict with those wanting to protect the rights of Parliament.

PARLIAMENT'S PETITION OF RIGHT

In the first four years of his reign Charles I called three Parliaments and disagreed with all of them. At the root of the problem were money and war: first against Spain, and then against France to support the Huguenots (the French Protestants). Parliament was all for the war, and voted funds for it - but at a price. That price was embodied in the Petition of Right, presented to the king by the House of Commons in 1628. It demanded an end to: martial law; billeting of troops on people; imprisonment without trial; and forced loans and taxes (raised without the consent of Parliament). The king was forced to accept the petition.

KING AGAINST PARLIAMENT

The quarrel between the king and Parliament continued, because Charles refused to stop collecting his own taxes after the time limit set by Parliament. The Commons passed three resolutions condemning the actions of Charles and his ministers. When the Speaker of the House, Sir John Finch, tried to announce that the king had dismissed Parliament, the Members of Parliament held him in his chair while the resolutions were put to the vote, and the doors were barred against Black Rod, the royal messenger from the House of Lords. Today, the Commons slam their door in Black Rod's face whenever he comes to summon them to hear the Queen's Speech in the Lords at the opening of Parliament. After this incident Charles did dissolve Parliament, and he ruled for 11 years without it. Like his father James I, Charles firmly believed in the doctrine of the divine right of kings, and rejected the role of Parliament to run the country.

THE CIVIL WAR

THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR OF 1642 to 1646, or Great Rebellion as some people called it, was sparked off by religion. Charles tried to impose bishops on the Scottish Church, and the Presbyterians refused to accept them. They signed a Covenant to resist, and raised an army. Charles made peace, but it did not last. He had to summon Parliament to obtain money to pay for his army, but dissolved it after three weeks. Then the Scots invaded England, and Charles persuaded them to halt on payment of £850 a day. Desperate, he had to call Parliament again in 1640.
This Parliament began by impeaching Strafford and Laud, the king's hated ministers, for treason, and later had Strafford executed. They abolished two ancient courts - Star Chamber and High Commission - which Charles had used to raise money illegally. John Hampden and John Pym led Members of the Commons to insist on reforms. Charles tried to arrest them and three other Members for treason. He failed, and soon armed conflict broke out. The opposing sides were the Parliamentarians, or Roundheads (they had their hair cut short), and the Royalists, or Cavaliers - because they wore long hair like the knights (chevaliers in French) of old.

BATTLES OF THE CIVIL WAR

The king's main support was in the west; Parliament held the east, and London. The actual fighting took place in a relatively small part of the country. But the impact of the Civil War was felt everywhere, not least because family loyalties were split. Early battles were inconclusive: the king's forces had better cavalry under the command of his nephew Prince Rupert )who had fought in Europe in the Thirty Years War). But the Parliamentary army, with its musketeers and pikemen, proved steadfast on the whole against the cavalry attacks. They were also later trained to charge and proved so steady in attack that Rupert called these well-trained forces Ironsides. Led by Oliver Cromwell, the Ironsides defeated Rupert and the Royalist army at Marston Moor in 1644 and won all the north of England. Parliament was so impressed it reorganized its forces into a New Model Army, based on Cromwell's Ironsides. This army grew to 20,000 men and was strictly disciplined, properly equipped, and regularly paid. It was led by General Fairfax with Cromwell as second-in-command. It defeated the king at the battle of Naseby in 1645, the last major battle of the Civil War. Charles escaped to Scotland but was handed over to Parliament by the Scots. Eventually, Parliament came to the conclusion that it could not trust the King and Charles became the only British monarch to be tried for treason and executed.

THE COMMONWEALTH

THE EXECUTION OF Charles I left England firmly in the hands of Parliament and its army. For the next 11 years the country did not have a king. This period was called the Commonwealth against Dutch, French and Spanish support for the young Charles II, as well as Scottish and Irish rebellions. Charles II was proclaimed king in Scotland, and the Irish also rallied to the Royalist cause. Cromwell took an army to Ireland, where he subdued the Royalists with great severity. Charles and an army of Scots marched into England, where they were defeated by Cromwell at Worcester. Charles escaped to France.

CROMWELL AND PARLIAMENT

The country was governed by the so-called Rump Parliament, made up of those Members of the Commons remaining when Cromwell and the army had forced through Charles I's trial and execution. It was this Parliament that had declared the Commonwealth and also abolished the House of Lords. Members of the Rump were mostly Puritans. Oliver Cromwell, however, was the real power in the land. He turned the Rump out, and called a new Parliament, nominated by the Army and the independent Nonconformist Churches. It was nicknamed Barebone's Parliament, after one of its more extreme religious Members, Praise-God Barebone. This Parliament also failed to provide a strong government.

CROMWELL: LORD PROTECTOR

From 1653 Oliver Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector. He was offered the Crown by Parliament but refused to be King Oliver. As Protector, Cromwell made the country peaceful and also made it stronger abroad. He allowed some religious freedom, except for Catholics in Ireland. He put down the Levellers who believed in the abolition of distinctions of rank. Cromwell still used his army to enforce what he thought was right. To maintain his army he had to increase taxes which made him very unpopular. Cromwell died, probably of cancer, in 1658.

CHARLES II

CROMWELL WAS GIVEN  a king's funeral. At this time no one was sure who should replace him - though most people wanted to return to having a monarchy. Before he died, Oliver Cromwell nominated his son to succeed him. Richard Cromwell was a weak and mild man and the Army, still the main power in the land, turned him out. Amid all the chaos, General George Monk, commander in Scotland, organized new elections, and a fresh Parliament recalled Charles II from exile to be king in 1660. Charles travelled from Holland with 100 ships, and timed his entry into London to coincide with his birthday. He was received with great popular acclaim.

THE CLARENCE CODE

After the upheavals and trauma of the Civil War and Commonwealth, people feared the Puritans both on religious grounds and also as a threat to the monarchy. Parliament therefore passed a group of Acts, which were known as the Clarendon Code, named after the king's chief minister, the Earl of Clarendon. The Code compelled all clergymen and people holding office in local and national government to take Communion in accordance with the rites of the Anglican Church. People who did not attend Church of England services would be punished. Nonconformist prayer-meetings were limited to five people, and their clergy were barred from coming nearer than eight kilometres to a town. Charles II is thought to have had some Catholic sympathies, but he knew that to keep his Crown he had to support the Church of England. So he went along with Parliament's rigid laws against Catholics and Puritans alike. Only on his deathbed did he convert to the Roman Catholic faith.

THE GREAT PLAGUE

The London that Charles II returned to in 1660 was the largest city in Europe with 500,000 inhabitants (Paris had 350,000). However, health and hygiene in the city had not improved since the time of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. The streets were just as dirty and full of disease and rats were everywhere. Many houses were built closely together and streets were very narrow. This meant that any epidemic would spread rapidly.

FOCUS ON THE GREAT PLAGUE

On June 7th, 1665, Samuel Pepys noted in his famous diary that ''this day, much against my will I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors''. This was the tell-tale sign that the occupants had become sick with the plague. The Great Plague, from 1664 to 1665, was an outbreak of bubonic plague in the southeast of England which killed 68,596 people - almost 20 per cent of London's population. There was no cure: bodies would be carried out at night in carts to special mass pits. Drivers rang handbells and called out ''Bring out your dead!'' They were paid well for a dangerous job. Pepys provides a gritty day-to-day account of the plague in his diaries.

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON

The following year saw another disaster, the Great Fire of London. This began in a baker's house in Pudding Lane and quickly swept through the crowded wooden houses. It raged for several days, until houses were blown up to make gaps which the fire could not cross. King Charles himself directed the firefighters and even worked among them. The fire was not an unmixed disaster; filthy alleys were burned down, the plague was halted, and London was rebuilt with wider streets and improved water supplies. After the fire, many new buildings were erected in stone and brick, instead of wood. Among them were 52 churches designed by the architect. Christopher Wren, including his most well-known building, St Paul's Cathedral, built in 1675-1710.

SAMUEL PEPYS'S DIARIES

We know a lot about both disasters in London thanks to the diaries of Samuel Pepys. He was a civil servant helping to improve the navy. He also had access to Charles II's Court and was a great gossip. He kept a diary for nine years but wrote it in secret and in code. The diaries were then lost, and not rediscovered until 1825. The diary has since became one of the most famous ever written in Britain. Its pages bring alive the London of Charles II with its theatres, coffee houses, horse-racing, gambling and beautiful women.

THE DUTCH WAR

The English and Dutch were rivals in fishing and trade, and when the Dutch started settlements on the Hudson River of North America among the English colonies, the merchants appealed to Parliament and war was declared. It began with an English victory in a naval battle of 300 ships off Lowestoft in 1665. In 1667, when the English fleet was unable to put to see because of lack of supplies, the Dutch sailed up the Medway, raided the naval dockyard at Chatham, and captured the flagship Royal Charles, which they took back to Holland as a war trophy. Other battles were fought during the two years that the war dragged on. One, in June 1666, in the North Sea, lasted for four days. The Dutch were led by their great admiral De Ruyter, and the English fought under George Monk, Duke of Albemarle. Both sides claimed victory.

JAMES II

CHARLES II HAD NO CHILDREN with his wife Catherine of Braganza from Portugal, but he had many mistresses who gave him 14 illegitimate sons and daughters. The most popular of his sons was James, Duke of Monmouth, called the Protestant Duke. Monmouth was a capable soldier, who had commanded English troops during the Dutch War. When Charles II died, his brother James became king in 1685, Monmouth thought he could rally the Protestant cause against the Catholic James and win the throne for himself. But he picked his time badly: James had not been king long enough to make himself unpopular, and the motley army Monmouth was able to raise was defeated at the battle of Sedgemoor, in Somerset. Monmouth was executed for treason, and so were nearly 300 of his followers. A further 800 were sold as slaves to Barbados.

JAMES II AND CATHOLIC PLOTS

Jame's succession was also threatened by fears of a Catholic plot. The Exclusion movement, led by the Whigs - the first political party in English history - believed the new king would try to restore the Roman Catholic religion. They wanted to exclude him from the throne. From 1688 James tried to introduce pro-Catholic measures including a Declaration of Indulgence which cancelled all laws against Nonconformists (chiefly Catholics). Seven bishops were arrested because they would not read out the Declaration in church, but were found not guilty. The arrests were very unpopular.

WHIG AND TORY

The terms Whig and Tory came into use at this time as terms of abuse for political opponents. Whig was originally a name for Scottish cattle thieves, but it was applied to those people who wanted to exclude James II from the throne because of his Catholic sympathies. James made a promise to uphold the Church of England (despite being a Catholic) to quieten the protesters. Tory was originally the name given to Irishmen whose land had been taken away and who had become outlaws. But the term Tory was given to those people who supported James II and the claims of the Crown. How the terms came to be applied to English political groups is obscure. But the name became thoroughly established in British politics.

WILLIAM AND MARY

JAMES II'S OBVIOUS ATTEMPTS to favour Catholics so angered the Protestants that Parliament invited the Dutch Protestant prince, William of Orange to come and deliver the country from its unpopular ruler. Parliament was prompted to this action by the birth of a son to James by his second wife. This pushed the claim of the Protestant Princess Mary, Jame's daughter and William's wife, into second place. William's invasion consisted of some 250 ships which anchored at Torbay in Devon in November 1688. William with his Protestant army landed to press his wife's claim to the throne. Mary had refused to accept the Crown unless Parliament also offered it to her husband. When William arrived in London James fled to France. As a result Parliament agreed that James had vacated his throne and offered the Crown to William and Mary.

IRISH PROTESTANT RULE

After he was deposed by William of Orange, Irish Catholics sided with James, while the Protestants of Ulster supported William. James went to Ireland where he raised an army. In 1689 he laid siege to Londonderry where thousands of Irish Protestants sought refuge. He failed to take the city and William finally defeated James at the battle of the Boyne in 1690. This battle is still celebrated annually by the Protestant Orangemen of Ulster. James fled back to France, where he died in 1701.

QUEEN ANNE

The Treaty of Ryswick made in 1697 between England, France, Holland and Spain had acknowledged William III as the rightful King of England, and Anne, James II's Protestant daughter, as his successor. She became Queen Anne I in 1702, aged 37, and was the last Stuart monarch. Her life was full of great personal sadness and bad health. She had 17 children but all of them died in infancy or childhood. Her reign was dominated by the War of the Spanish Succession abroad and by rivalry between Whigs and Tories at home. By the terms of the Act of Succession of 1701 the throne was to pass to the nearest Protestant heir, in the House of Hanover. Anne hated her German cousins and refused to allow them to come to England. But as her reign drew to an end she sent an envoy to the future George I, assuring him of her friendship. By so doing she played a vital role in ensuring that there was a peaceful change of dynasty. 

ACT OF UNION

The political union of England and Scotland, which James I had tried to bring about when he became King of England in 1603, was finally accomplished in 1707. The Scots did not accept the English Act of Settlement, which in 1701 had settled the Crown on the descendants of the Protestant Sophia of Hanover (grand-daughter of James I and mother of the future George I). There was an unspoken threat that Scotland might, when Queen Anne died, bring back the Catholic Stuarts by making James II's son, James Francis Edward the Old Pretender, King of Scotland. This threat brought the English Parliament to support the move towards union. The Scots had come to realize that their country could no longer prosper as an independent nation. Under the Act of Union, their Parliament gained free trade with England, and cash to pay off huge debts acquired in a disastrous colonising venture in Darien in Central America. The Scots also kept their own legal system and Presbyterian church.

BIRTH OF GREAT BRITAIN

The resulting kingdom of England and Scotland was called Great Britain. For some years after the union the people of Scotland, felt they were at a disadvantage in an unequal partnership. The English majority in the combined Parliament meant that measures which favoured England at Scotland's expense were passed. One example was a special tax on linen, which was unimportant in the south but a major industry north of the border. However, the union was in Scotland's favour as it was now able to trade with England's various colonies. After decades of conflict the two countries combined in an uneasy but peaceful alliance.

FOCUS ON THE COFFEE HOUSES

During the 1600s coffee was brought to England from the Middle East. In 1652 the first coffee house was opened in London. Coffee houses quickly spread to become popular places where people went to gossip, do business deals and discuss politics. In 1688 Edward Lloyd opened a coffee house in Tower Street, a rendezvous for people who would insure ships and their cargoes, and read a publication called Lloyd's News, which gave important shipping details. From this original 17th-century coffee house sprang the modern Lloyd's, the world's foremost shipping insurers. From about 1704 single news-sheets - the first form of newspapers - could also be bought and read at coffee houses.