Chinaware is a name given to porcelain (pottery made from kaolin), so called from China being the first country to supply it to Europeans. It is thought that the Chinese produced porcelain from ancient times, but it wasn't until around 500 AD that they perfected the art. Chinaware first came to Europe in the beginning of the 16th century and won immediate popularity for its beauty and novelty.
The European consumers thought it impossible to match the whiteness of Chinaware, until John Frederick of Saxony, an alchemist, discovered a means of producing a porcelain equal in whiteness to the Chinaware. This led to the establishment by the Government of a factory at Meissen which started to produce porcelain rivalling the Chinaware in beauty and quality.
In France also about the middle of the 18th century the celebrated factory at Sevres was set up and soon acquired a great renown. In England a porcfaiain work was established at Chelsea some years prior to 1745; it was made at Stratford-le-Bow about the same time, at Derby as early as 1750, at Worcester in 1751. About 1755 kaolin or porcelain clay was discovered in Cornwall, and this contributed greatly to improve the quality of English porcelain, which began to be largely manufactured in Staffordshire under the auspices of Josiah Spode and Thomas Minton.
Chinaware, when broken, presents a granular surface with a compact, dense, firm, hard, vitreous and durable texture. It is semi-transparent, with a covering of white glaze, clear, smooth, unaffected by all acids except hydroflouric acid, and able to withstand sudden changes of temperature. Research Chinaware
Billy Bremner was a Scottish association football player. He was born in 1942 at Stirling and died in 1997. Billy Bremner started his professional football career with Leeds United, having been rejected by both Arsenal and Chelsea because of his small stature. At Leeds United FC Billy Bremner made 771 appaearances between 1959 and 1976 before leaving to play for Hull City in 1976, leaving them for Doncaster Rovers in 1978 and retiring from playing in 1982 to become a manager. During his career Billy Bremner was captain of Leeds United FC and also captained in Scotland in 54 internationals. Less honourably he was infamously sent off for fighting with Kevin Keegan in the 1974 CharityShieldfootball match at Wembley. Research Billy Bremner
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke was and English writer and politician. He was born in 1843 and died in 1911. The son and grandson of men well known in their day, he graduated at Cambridge, and was called to the bar. His first work, Greater Britain, the result of a tour round the world in 1866-67, became very popular. In 1868 he was elected MP for Chelsea, and he represented this constituency up to 1885. After a few years' retirement (owing to a divorce case) he became MP for Forest of Dean. He was under-secretary for foreign affairs, president of the local government board, etc. The Present Position of European Politics, and Problems of Greater Britain, are among his works. He organised the Labour members of parliament into an influential party. Research Charles Dilke
Charles II was King of England, Ireland and Scotland from 1660 to 1685. He was the sone of son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria of France. He was a refugee at the Hague on the death of his father, on which he immediately assumed the royal title. Oliver Cromwell was then all-powerful in England; but Charles II accepted an invitation from the Scots, who had proclaimed him their king in July, 1650, and, passing over to Scotland, he was crowned at Scone in 1651. Oliver Cromwell's approach made him take refuge amongst the English royalists, who, having gathered an army, encountered Oliver Cromwell at Worcester, and were totally defeated. With great difficulty Charles II escaped to France. On the death of Oliver Cromwell the Restoration effected without a struggle by General Monk set Charles on the throne after the declaration of Breda, his entry into the capital on the 29th of May, 1660 being made amidst universal acclamations.
Despite the bitterness left from the Civil Wars and Charles I's execution, there were few detailed negotiations over the conditions of Charles II's restoration to the throne. Under the Declaration of Breda of May 1660, Charles had promised pardons, arrears of Army pay, confirmation of land purchases during the Interregnum and 'liberty of tender consciences' in religious matters, but several issues remained unresolved. However, the Militia Act of 1661 vested control of the armed forces in the Crown, and Parliament agreed to an annual revenue of 1, 200,000 pounds. The bishops were restored to their seats in the House of Lords, and the Triennial Act of 1641 was repealed - there was no mechanism for enforcing the King's obligation to call Parliament at least once every three years.
Under the 1660 Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, only the lands of the Crown and the Church were automatically resumed; the lands of Royalists and other dissenters which had been confiscated and/or sold on were left for private negotiation or litigation.
In 1662 Charles II married the Infanta of Portugal, Catharine of Bra-ganza, a prudent and virtuous princess, but in no way calculated to acquire the affection of a man like Charles. For a time his measures, mainly counselled by the chancellorLordClarendon, were prudent and conciliatory. But the indolence, extravagance, and licentious habits of the king soon involved the nation as well as himself in difficulties. Dunkirk was sold to the French to relieve his pecuniary embarrassment, and war broke out with Holland. A Dutch fleet entered the Thames, and burned and destroyed ships as far up as Chatham. The early years of Charles's reign saw an appalling plague which hit the country in 1665 with 70,000 dying in London alone, and the Great Fire of London in 1666 which destroyed St Paul's amongst other buildings. Another misfortune included the second Dutch war of 1665 (born of English and Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry). Although the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was overrun and renamed New York before the war started, by 1666 France and Denmark had allied with the Dutch. The war was dogged by poor administration culminating in a Dutch attack on the Thames in 1667; a peace was negotiated later in the year.
In 1667, Charles dismissed his LordChancellor, Clarendon - an adviser from Charles's days of exile. As a scapegoat for the difficult religious settlement and the Dutch war, Clarendon had failed to build a 'Court interest' in the Commons. Clarendon was dismissed, and was succeeded by a series of ministerial combinations, the first of which was that of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale. Such combinations (except for Danby's dominance of Parliament from 1673 to 1679) were largely kept in balance by Charles for the rest of his reign. Charles's foreign policy was a wavering balance of alliances with France and the Dutch in turn.
A triple alliance between England, Holland, and Sweden, for the purpose of checking the ambition of Louis XIV, followed; but the extravagance of the king made him willing to become a mere pensioner of Louis XIV, with whom he arranged a private treaty against Holland in 1670 - the secret treaty of Dover under which Charles would declare himself a Catholic and England would side with France against the Dutch, in return Charles would receive subsidies from the King of France (thus enabling Charles some limited room for manoeuvre with Parliament, but leaving the possibility of public disclosure of the treaty by Louis). Practical considerations prevented such a public conversion, but Charles issued a Declaration of Indulgence, using his prerogative powers to suspend the penal laws against Catholics and Nonconformists. In the face of an Anglican Parliament's opposition, Charles was eventually forced to withdraw the Declaration in 1673.
The Cabal ministry was by this time in power, and they were quite ready to break the triple alliance and bring about a rupture with the Dutch. As the king did not choose to apply to parliament for money to carry on the projected war he caused the exchequer to be shut up in January, 1672, and by several other disgraceful and arbitrary proceedings gave great disgust and alarm to the nation. The war ended in failure, and the Cabal ministry was dissolved in 1673.
In 1677 Charles married his niece Mary to William of Orange partly to restore the balance after his brother's second marriage to the Catholic Mary of Modena and to re-establish his own Protestantcredentials. This assumed a greater importance as it became clear that Charles's marriage to Catherine of Braganza would produce no legitimate heirs (although Charles had a number of mistresses and illegitimate children) , and his Roman Catholic brother James's position as heir apparent raised the prospect of a Catholic king.
Throughout Charles's reign, religious toleration dominated the political scene. The 1662 Act of Uniformity had imposed the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and insisted that clergy subscribe to Anglican doctrine (some 1,000 clergy lost their livings). Anti-Catholicism was widespread; the Test Act of 1673 excluded Roman Catholics from both Houses of Parliament. Parliament's reaction to the Popish Plot of 1678 (an allegation by Titus Oates that Jesuit priests were conspiring to murder the King, and involving the Queen and the Lord Treasurer, Danby) was to impeach Danby and present a Bill to exclude James (Charles's younger brother and a Roman Catholic convert) from the succession.
In 1679 the Habeas Corpus Act was passed, and the temper of the parliament was so much excited that the king dissolved it. A new parliament which assembled in 1680 had to be dissolved for a like reason, and yet another which met the year following at Oxford. Finally Charles, like his father, determined to govern without a parliament, and after the suppression of the Rye House plot and the execution of Russell and Sidney Charles became as absolute as any sovereign in Europe.
Charles sponsored the founding of the Royal Society in 1660 to promote scientific research. Charles also encouraged a rebuilding programme, particularly in the last years of his reign, which included extensive rebuilding at Windsor Castle, a huge but uncompleted new palace at Winchester and the Greenwich Observatory. Charles was a patron of Christopher Wren in the design and rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral, Chelsea Hospital and other London buildings. Charles II died in 1685, becoming a Roman Catholic on his deathbed. Research Charles II
Derwent Coleridge was an English teacher and writer. He was born in 1800 and died in 1883. From 1841 to 1864 he was principal of St Mark's College, Chelsea, and from 1864 to 1880 rector of Hanwell. Research Derwent Coleridge
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was an English novelist. She was born in 1810 at Chelsea and died in 1865. The daughter of William Stevenson, editor of Scott's Magazine, she was brought up by an aunt at Knutsford in Cheshire (the original of the village in her story of Cranford) and in 1832 married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister at Manchester. She achieved fame with her novel 'Mary Barton', written in 1848, which described factory life and the struggles then rife in Lancashire between workmen and employers. The Moorland Cottage, a Christmas story, appeared in 1850; and in 1853, her next regular novel, Ruth, which aims a distinct blow at the common moral judgments of society. Lizzie, Cranford, and other minor tales appeared at various times in Household Words, in which also she wrote her next novel, North and South, a Yorkshire tale. In 1857 appeared her admirable Life of Charlotte Bronte, and in 1860 Sylvia's Lovers. Wives and Daughters appeared posthumously in 1866. Research Elizabeth Gaskell
George Eliot was the published name of Mary Ann Evans (Marian Evans), an English writer. She was born in 1819 at Griff near Nuneaton and died in 1880. She was the daughter of a Warwickshire land-agent and surveyor, and received an excellent education at Coventry, comprising the classical and modern languages, and shortly after her twenty-first birthday she became a convert to Rationalism.
Her first literary undertaking was the completion of Mrs. Hennell's translation of Strauss's Life of Jesus (1846). After spending two years abroad she boarded at the house of John Chapman, editor of the Westminster Review, of which she became sub-editor. It was not, however, until January, 1857, that she came prominently into public notice, when the first of a series of tales entitled Scenes from Clerical Life appeared in Blackwood's Magazine. These were written anonymously, and when it was assumed to have been written by a man she adopted her nom de plume. The series came to an end in November, 1857, and in the following year the publication of Adam Bede placed her in the first rank of writers of fiction. It was succeeded by the Mill on the Floss published in 1860, Silas Marner published in 1861, Eomola (1863), Felix Holt (1866), Middlemarch (1872), and Daniel Deronda (1876). In addition to those prose works she published three volumes of poems, The Spanish Gypsy (1818), Agatha (1869), and the Legend of Jubal (1874). Her last work published during her life was the series of essays entitled The Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879), but a volume of mixed essays was issued posthumously. For many years she was happily associated both in life and work with George Henry Lewes, though marriage was impossible during the lifetime of Mrs. Lewes. In May, 1880, after Mr. Lewes' death, she married Mr. John Cross, but did not survive the marriage many months, dying rather suddenly at Chelsea on the 22nd of December of that year. Research George Eliot
James Gillray was an English artist and caricaturist. He was born in 1757 at Chelsea and died in 1815. He studied at the Royal Academy, and some clever sketches, published about 1780, first attracted attention to him. From this time until about 1810 he kept his position before the public by a succession of caricatures in which the king (George III) and the members of the House of Lords, and afterwards the French and the French celebrities of the day, were the chief objects of ridicule. In his closing years he suffered from mental ill-health which continued until his death. Research James Gillray
John Bagnold Burgess was an English painter. He was born in 1829 at Chelsea and died in 1897. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools in 1851 and for thirty years visited Spain annually. Research John Burgess
Philip Francis was an Irish poet and dramatist. He was born in 1700 at Dublin 1700 and died in 1773. Educated at Dublin, he took orders, and kept an academy at Esher, Surrey, where Gibbon was one of his pupils. He was later chaplain to Chelsea Hospital. He is best remembered for his translations of the classical authors such as Horace. Research Philip Francis
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