title: Gill Sans

text: Morison and Gill had met with some resistance within Monotype while developing Perpetua and while Morison was an enthusiastic backer of the project, Monotype's engineering manager and type designer Frank Hinman Pierpont was deeply unconvinced, commenting that he could "see nothing in this design to recommend it and much that is objectionable". (Pierpont was the creator of Monotype's previous mainstay sans-serif, a loose family now called Monotype Grotesque. It is a much less sculptured design inspired by German sans-serifs.) Morison also intervened to insist that the letters "J" and "Q" be allowed to elegantly descend below the baseline, something not normal for titling typefaces which were often made to fill up the entire area of the metal type. In the early days of its existence it was not always consistently simply called "Gill Sans", with other names such as "Gill Sans-serif", "Monotype Sans-Serif" (the latter two both used by Gill in some of his publications) or its order numbers (such as Series No. 231) sometimes used.


title: Gill Sans

text: A large amount of material about the development of Gill Sans survives in Monotype's archives and in Gill's papers. While the capitals (which were prepared first) resemble Johnston quite closely, the archives document Gill (and the drawing office team at Monotype's works in Salfords Surrey, who developed a final precise design and spacing) grappling with the challenge of creating a viable humanist sans-serif lower-case as well as an italic, which Johnston's design did not have. Gill's first draft proposed many slanting cuts on the ends of ascenders and descenders, looking less like Johnston than the released version did, and quite long descenders.


title: Gill Sans

text: Early art for the italic also looked very different, with less of a slope, again very long descenders and swash capitals. The final version did not use the calligraphic italic "g" Gill preferred in his serif designs Perpetua and Joanna (and considered in the draft italic art), instead using a standard "double-storey" "g".


title: Gill Sans

text: In the regular or roman style of Gill Sans, some letters were simplified from Johnston, with diamond dots becoming round (rectangles in the later light weight) and the lower-case "L" becoming a simple line, but the "a" became more complex with a curving tail in most versions and sizes. In addition, the design was simply refined in general, for example by making the horizontals slightly narrower than verticals so that they do not appear unbalanced, a standard technique in font design which Johnston had not used. The "R" with its widely splayed leg is Gill's preferred design, unlike that of Johnston; historian James Mosley has suggested that this may be inspired by an Italian Renaissance carving in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.


title: Gill Sans

text: Particular areas of thought during the design process were the "a" (several versions and sizes in the hot metal era had a straight tail like Johnston's or a mildly curving tail) and the "b", "d", "p" and "q", where some versions (and sizes, since the same weight would not be identical at every size) had stroke ends visible and others did not. Rhatigan has commented that Monotype's archives contain "enough [material] for a book just about the 'b', 'd', 'p', and 'q' of Gill Sans".


title: Gill Sans

text: The titling capitals of Gill Sans were first unveiled at a printing conference in 1928; it was also shown in a specimen issued in the "Fleuron" magazine edited by Morison. While initial response was partly appreciative, it was still considered dubious by some ultra-conservative printers who saw all sans-serif type as modern and unsound; one called it "typographical Bolshevism". Sans-serifs were still regarded as vulgar and commercial by purists in this period: Johnston's pupil Graily Hewitt privately commented of them that: In Johnston I have lost confidence. Despite all he did for us ... he has undone too much by forsaking his standard of the Roman alphabet, giving the world, without safeguard or explanation, his block letters which disfigure our modern life. His prestige has obscured their vulgarity and commercialism. Nonetheless, Gill Sans rapidly became popular after its release.


title: Gill Sans

text: Gill Sans' technical production followed Monotype's standard method of the period. The characters were drawn mirrored on paper in large plan diagrams by the experienced drawing office team, led and trained by Pierpont and Fritz Steltzer, both of whom Monotype had recruited from the German printing industry. The drawing staff who executed the design was disproportionately female; they worked out many aspects of the final drawings including adaptations of the letters to different sizes and the spacing. The diagrams were then used as a plan for machining metal punches by pantograph to stamp matrices, which would be loaded into a casting machine to cast type. It was Monotype's standard practice at the time to first engrave a limited number of characters and print proofs (some of which survive) from them to test overall balance of colour and spacing on the page, before completing the remaining characters. Walter Tracy, Rhatigan and Gill's biographer Malcolm Yorke have all written that the drawing office's work in making Gill Sans successful has not been fully appreciated; Yorke described Gill as "tactless" in his claims that the design was "as much as possible mathematically measurable ... as little reliance as possible should be placed on the sensibility of the draughtsmen and others concerned in its machine facture".


title: Gill Sans

text: Gill Sans rapidly became very popular. Its success was aided by Monotype's sophisticated marketing, led by Gill's supporter Beatrice Warde, and due to its practicality and availability for machine composition in a very wide range of sizes and weights.


title: Gill Sans

text: Despite the popularity of Gill Sans, some reviews have been critical. Robert Harling, who knew Gill, wrote in his 1976 anthology examining Gill's lettering that the density of the basic weight made it unsuitable for extended passages of text, printing a passage in it as a demonstration. The regular weight has been used to print body text for some trade printing uses such as guides to countryside walks published by the LNER. William Addison Dwiggins described it and Futura as "fine in the capitals and bum in the lower-case" while proposing to create a more individualistic competitor, Metro, for Linotype around 1929. Modern writers, including Stephen Coles and Ben Archer, have criticised it for failing to improve on Johnston and for unevenness of colour, especially in the bolder weights (discussed below). More generally, modern font designer Jonathan Hoefler has criticised Johnston and Gill's designs for rigidity, calling their work "products more of the machine than the hand, chilly and austere designs shaped by unbending rules, whose occasional moments of whimsy were so out of place as to feel volatile and disquieting".


title: Gill Sans

text: Gill broached the topic of the similarity with Johnston in a variety of ways in his work and writings, writing to Johnston in 1933 to apologise for the typeface bearing his name and describing Johnston's work as being important and seminal. However, in his "Essay on Typography", he proposed that his version was "perhaps an improvement" and more "fool-proof" than Johnston's. Johnston and Gill had drifted apart by the beginning of the 1920s, something Gill's groundbreaking biographer Fiona MacCarthy describes as partly due to the anti-Catholicism of Johnston's wife Greta. Frank Pick, the Underground Electric Railways Company managing director who commissioned Johnston's typeface, privately thought Gill Sans "a rather close copy" of Johnston's work.


title: Gill Sans

text: Following the initial success of Gill Sans, Monotype rapidly produced a wide variety of other variants. In addition, Monotype sold moulds (matrices) for Gill Sans in very large sizes for their "Supercaster" type-casting equipment. Popular with advertisers, this allowed end-users to cast their own type at a very competitive price. This made it a popular choice for posters. Gill's biographer Malcolm Yorke has described it as "the essence of clarity for public notices".


title: Gill Sans

text: Versions of Gill Sans were created in a wide range of styles such as condensed and shadowed weights. Several shadowed designs were released, including a capitals-only regular shadowed design and a light-shadowed version with deep relief shadows. In the metal type era, a 'cameo ruled' design that placed white letters in boxes or against a stippled black background was available. The shadowed weights were intended to be used together with the regular, printing in different colours, to achieve a simple multicolour effect. Some of the decorative versions may predominantly have been designed by the Monotype office, with Gill examining, critiquing and approving the designs sent to him by post. The long series of extensions, redrawings and conversions into new formats of one of Monotype's most important assets (extending long beyond Gill's death) has left Gill Sans with a great range of alternative designs and releases. A book weight was created in 1993 in between the light and regular weight, suitable for body text, along with a heavy weight.


title: Gill Sans

text: In 1936, Gill and Monotype released an extremely bold sans-serif named Gill Kayo (from KO, or knockout, implying its aggressive build). This has often been branded as Gill Sans Ultra Bold, though in practice many letters vary considerably from Gill Sans. Gill, who thought of the design as something of a joke, proposed naming it "Double Elefans". Harling reviewed it as "dismal" and sarcastically commented that "typographical historians of 2000AD (which isn't, after all, so very far away) will find this odd outburst in Mr Gill's career, and will spend much time in attempting to track down this sad psychological state of his during 1936." Forty years later he described it as "the most horrendous and blackguardly of these display exploitations". The design was begun in 1932; some of the first drawings may have been prepared by Gill's son-in-law Denis Tegetmeier. It made a return to popularity in the graphic design of the 1970s and 80s, when Letraset added a condensed weight.


title: Gill Sans

text: The boldest weights of Gill Sans, including Kayo, have been particularly criticised for design issues such as the eccentric design of the dots on the "i" and "j", and for their extreme boldness. (Gill Sans' standard weight is, as already noted, already quite bold by modern standards.) Gill argued in his "Essay on Typography" that the nineteenth-century tendency to make sans-serif typefaces attention-grabbingly bold was self-defeating, since the result was compromised legibility. In the closing paragraph he ruefully noted his contribution to the genre: There are now about as many different varieties of letters as there are different kinds of fools. I myself am responsible for designing five different sorts of sans-serif letters – each one thicker and fatter than the last because each advertisement has to try and shout down its neighbours.


title: Gill Sans

text: Monotype developed a set of alternative characters for Gill Sans to cater for differing tastes and national printing styles of different countries. These include Futura-inspired designs of "N", "M", "R", "a", "g", "t" and others, a four-terminal "W" in the French renaissance style, a tighter "R", a "Q" in the nineteenth-century style with a tail that looped upwards (similar to that on Century among others, and used by the LNER), oblique designs as opposed to the standard true italic, a more curving, true-italic "e" and several alternative numerals. In particular, in the standard designs for Gill Sans the numeral "1", upper-case "i" and lower-case "L" are all a simple vertical line, so an alternative "1" with a serif was sold for number-heavy situations where this could otherwise cause confusion, such as on price-lists. (Not all timetables used it: for example, the L.N.E.R. used the simple version.) Some early versions of Gill Sans also had features later abandoned, such as an unusual "7" matching the curve of the "9", a "5" pushing forwards, and a lower-case letter-height "0".


title: Gill Sans

text: Gill was involved in the design of these alternatives, and Monotype's archive preserves notes that he rethought the geometric alternatives. With the increasing popularity of Futura Gill Sans was not alone in being adapted: both Erbar and Dwiggins' Metro would undergo what historian Paul Shaw has called a "Futura-ectomy" to conform to taste. After Gill's death, Monotype created versions for the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets. Monotype also added additional features not found in the metal type, notably text figures and small capitals.


title: Gill Sans

text: According to Rhatigan and other sources, by the end of the metal type period Gill Sans had been released in the following styles (not all sold at the same time):


title: Gill Sans

text: Monotype offered Gill Sans on film in the phototypesetting period. The fonts released in 1961 included Light 362, Series 262, Bold 275, Extra Bold 321, Condensed 343, all of which were released in film matrix sets "A" (6–7 points) and "B" (8–22, 24 points).


title: Gill Sans

text: Monotype created an infant version of Gill Sans using single-storey "a" and "g", and other more distinguishable characters such as a rounded "y", seriffed "1" and lower-case "L" with a turn at the bottom. Infant designs of fonts are often used in education and toys as the letters are thought to be more recognisable to children being based on handwriting, and are often produced to supplement popular families such as Gill Sans, Akzidenz-Grotesk and Bembo. Monotype also created a version with rounded stroke ends for John Lewis for use on toys.


title: Gill Sans

text: The digital releases of Gill Sans fall into several main phases: releases before 2005 (which includes most bundled "system" versions of Gill Sans), the 2005 Pro edition, and the 2015 Nova release which adds many alternative


title: Gill Sans

text: characters and is in part included with Windows 10. In general characteristics for common weights the designs are similar, but there are some changes: for example, in the book weight the 2005 release used circular ij dots but the 2015 release uses square designs, and the 2015 release simplifies some ligatures. Digital Gill Sans also gained character sets not present in the metal type, including text figures and small capitals.


title: Gill Sans

text: Like all metal type revivals, reviving Gill Sans in digital form raises several decisions of interpretation, such as the issue of how to compensate for the ink spread that would have been seen in print at small sizes more than larger. As a result, printed Gill Sans and its digital facsimile may not always match. The digital release of Gill Sans, like many Monotype digitisations, has been criticised, in particular for excessively tight letter-spacing and lack of optical sizes: with only one design released that has to be used at any text size, it cannot replicate the subtlety of design and spacing of the metal type, for which every size was drawn differently. In the hot metal era different font sizes varied as is normal for metal type, with wider spacing and other detail changes at smaller text sizes; other major sans-serif families such as Futura and Akzidenz-Grotesk are similar. In the phototype period Monotype continued to offer two or three sizes of master, but all of this subtlety was lost on transfer to digital. To replicate this, it is necessary to make manual adjustment to spacing to compensate for size changes, such as expanding the spacing and increasing the weight used at smaller sizes.


title: Gill Sans

text: Former ATypI president John Berry commented of Gill Sans' modernised spacing that "both the regular weight and especially the light weight look much better when they're tracked loose". In contrast, Walter Tracy wrote in 1986 that he preferred the later spacing: "the metal version ... was spaced, I suspect, as if it were a serif face".


title: Gill Sans

text: As of 2019, Monotype's current digitisation of Gill Sans is Gill Sans Nova, by George Ryan. Gill Sans Nova adds many additional variants, including some of the previously undigitised inline versions, stylistic alternates and an ultra-light weight which had been drawn for "Grazia". The fonts differ from Gill Sans MT (MT stands for Monotype) in their adoption of the hooked 1 as default, while the regular weight is renamed 'Medium'. Monotype celebrated the release with a London exhibition on Gill's work, as they had in 1958 to mark the general release of Gill's serif design Joanna. One addition was italic swash caps, which had been considered by Gill but never released.


title: Gill Sans

text: The family includes 43 fonts, including 33 text fonts in 9 weights and 3 widths, 6 inline fonts in 5 weights and 2 widths (1 in condensed), 2 shadowed fonts in 2 weights and 1 width, 1 shadowed outline font, 1 deco font. Characters set support includes W1G. The basic set of Regular, Light and Bold weights is bundled with Windows 10 in the user-downloadable "Pan-European Supplemental Fonts" package.


title: Gill Sans

text: First unveiled in a single uppercase weight in 1928, Gill Sans achieved national prominence almost immediately, when it was chosen the following year to become the standard typeface by the LNER railway company, soon appearing on every facet of the company's identity, from metal locomotive nameplates and hand-painted station signage to printed restaurant car menus, timetables and advertising posters.


title: Gill Sans

text: The LNER promoted their rebranding by offering Gill (who was fascinated with railway engines) a footplate ride on the "Flying Scotsman" express service; he also painted for it a signboard in the style of Gill Sans, which survives in the collection of the St Bride Library.


title: Gill Sans

text: In 1949 the Railway Executive decided on standard types of signs to be used at all stations. Lettering was to use the Gill Sans typeface on a background of the regional colour. Gill Sans was also used in much of its printed output, very often in capitals-only settings for signage. Specially drawn variations were developed by the Railway Executive (part of the British Transport Commission) for signs in its manual for the use of signpainters painting large signs by hand. Other users included Penguin Books' iconic paperback jacket designs from 1935 and British official mapping agency Ordnance Survey. It was also used by London Transport for documents which could not be practically set in Johnston. Paul Shaw, a historian of printing, has described it as a key element of the 'Modernist classical' style from the 1930s to the 1950s, that promoted clean, spare design, often with all-capitals and centred setting of headings.


title: Gill Sans

text: Gill Sans remains popular, although a trend away from it towards grotesque and neo-grotesque typefaces took place around the 1950s and 1960s under the influence of continental and American design. Typefaces that became popular around this time included original early "grotesque" sans-serifs, as well as new and more elegant designs in the same style such as Helvetica and Univers. Mosley has commented that in 1960 "orders unexpectedly revived" for the old Monotype Grotesque design: "[it] represents, even more evocatively than Univers, the fresh revolutionary breeze that began to blow through typography in the early sixties." He added in 2007 "its rather clumsy design seems to have been one of the chief attractions to iconoclastic designers tired of the ... prettiness of Gill Sans". As an example of this trend, Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert's corporate rebranding of BR as British Rail in 1965 introduced Helvetica and Univers for printed matter and the custom but very similar Rail Alphabet for signage, and abandoned the classical, all caps signage style with which Gill Sans is often associated. Kinneir and Calvert's road signage redesign used a similar approach. Linotype and its designer Hermann Zapf, who had begun development on a planned Gill Sans competitor in 1955, first considered redrawing some letters to make it more like these faces before abandoning the design project (now named "Magnus") around 1962–3.


title: Gill Sans

text: An additional development which reduced Gill Sans' dominance was the arrival of phototypesetting, which allowed typefaces to be printed from photographs on film and (especially in display use – hot metal continued for some body text setting for longer) massively increased the range of typefaces that could cheaply be used. Dry transfers like Letraset had a similar effect for smaller projects; their sans-serif Compacta and Stephenson Blake's Impact exemplified the design trends of the period by choosing dense, industrial designs. Of the period from the 1930s to 1950s, when he was growing up, James Mosley would later write: The Monotype classics dominated the typographical landscape ... in Britain, at any rate, they were so ubiquitous that, while their excellent quality was undeniable, it was possible to be bored by them and to begin to rebel against the bland good taste that they represented. In fact we were already aware by 1960 that they might not be around to bore us for too long. The death of metal type ... seemed at last to be happening.


title: Gill Sans

text: While extremely popular in Britain, and to a lesser extent in European printing, Gill Sans did not achieve popularity with American printers in the hot metal era, with most preferring gothic designs like Franklin Gothic and geometric designs like Futura and Monotype's own Twentieth Century. Gill Sans therefore particularly achieved worldwide popularity after the close of the metal type era and in the phototypesetting and digital era, when it became a system font on Macintosh computers and Microsoft Office. One use of Gill's work in the United States in this period, however, was a custom wordmark and logo made by Gill for "Poetry" magazine in 1930 based on Gill Sans. Its editor Harriet Monroe had seen Gill's work in London.


title: Gill Sans

text: The BBC adopted the typeface as its corporate typeface in 1997 for many but not all purposes, including on its logo. Explaining the change, designer Martin Lambie-Nairn said that "by choosing a typeface that has stood the test of time, we avoid the trap of going down a modish route that might look outdated in several years' time". This was not Gill's only association with the BBC, as he had designed sculptures and other artwork that are on display at the broadcaster's London headquarters, Broadcasting House. In 2017, the BBC began to phase out Gill Sans in favour of a proprietary corporate font family, "Reith" (named after its first general manager John Reith), which was designed to be more legible on mobile devices, and did not require licensing for continued use. The font was adopted by the BBC's corporate logo in 2021.


title: Gill Sans

text: Other more recent British organisations using Gill Sans have included Railtrack (and initially its successor Network Rail), John Lewis and the Church of England, which adopted Gill Sans as the typeface for the definitive Common Worship family of service books published from 2000. British rock band Bloc Party has used Gill Sans in its logo.


title: Gill Sans

text: Notable non-British modern businesses using Gill Sans include United Colours of Benetton (which commissioned a custom variant), Tommy Hilfiger and Saab Automobile. Many newer Mitsubishi elevator buttons use a derivative of the font, replacing Helvetica, as some numbers (such as "6" and "9") are more easily distinguishable. Some old Express Lift buttons also use the font. In 2017, Roblox uses Gill Sans Ultra Bold in their logo, albeit its letter "O" was stylized to a square, akin to a block. AT&T used it until 2006, before changing it to Clearview after feeling that it was too in keeping with market research that people found the company "monolithic". Edward Tufte, the information design theorist, uses Gill Sans on his website and in some of his published works. Metro Transit uses Gill Sans Italic for the logos of its Metro lines, introduced in 2004 with the Hiawatha Line. The Wikimedia Foundation uses Gill Sans on its wordmark. It is also used on VisualEditor.


title: Gill Sans

text: The Sheffield type foundry Stephenson Blake rapidly released a commercial competitor named Granby, influenced by Gill Sans, Johnston and Futura. Granby was a large family with condensed and inline styles; it has a diamond-dot design like Johnston. It also included a "Granby Elephant" weight influenced by Gill Kayo.


title: Gill Sans

text: Another similar but more eccentric design was created by Johnston's student Harold Curwen for the use of his family company, the Curwen Press of Plaistow. Named "Curwen Sans" or "Curwen Modern", it has many similarities to Johnston also, and was occasionally used by London Transport in work printed by the Curwen Press. Curwen described it as based on his time studying with Johnston in the 1900s, although it was not cut into metal until 1928, around the same time as Gill Sans was released, with a lower-case similar to that of Kabel. A digitisation by K-Type was released in 2018.


title: Gill Sans

text: Several intended Gill Sans competitors were developed during the period of its popularity but ultimately did not see mass release. Jan Tschichold, who would later make extensive use of Gill Sans while designing books for Penguin, created a similar design for an early phototypesetting machine, which was at the time little-used but also since digitised. During the 1930s Dutch type designer Jan van Krimpen, also a friend of Morison's, worked on a superfamily named Romulus, with serif and humanist sans-serif companion: the sans-serif, with a low x-height, never progressed beyond test proofs. As described above, Linotype began work in 1955 on a Gill Sans competitor, intended to be named 'Magnus'. Designed by the German type designer Hermann Zapf with input from British Linotype manager Walter Tracy, the design was ultimately abandoned by 1963 for reasons of lack of manufacturing capacity and changing tastes, although it too reached test proofs.


title: Gill Sans

text: Besides similar fonts, many signs and objects made in Britain during the period of Gill Sans' dominance, such as the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster, received hand-painted or custom lettering similar to Gill Sans. Fighter Command during the war used a standard set of letters similar to it. Matthew Carter, later a prominent font designer, recalled in 2005 that when his mother cut linoleum block letters for him to play with during the Blitz they were based on it. Another little-known follower was the NEN 3225 standard lettering, a project by the Dutch Standards Institute to create a set of standardised lettering for public use in the Netherlands, comprising a sans-serif similar to Gill Sans and a companion serif font drawn by Jan van Krimpen. The project was begun in 1944 but not published until 1963, and ultimately did not become popular.


title: Gill Sans

text: The category of humanist sans-serif typefaces, which Gill Sans helped to define, saw great attention during the 1980s and 1990s, especially as a reaction against the overwhelming popularity of Helvetica and Univers in the 1960s and 1970s.


title: Gill Sans

text: Modern sans-serif designs inspired by Gill often adapt the concept by creating a design better proportioned and spaced for body text, a wider and more homogeneous range of weights, something easier since the arrival of the computer due to the use of multiple master or interpolated font design, or more irregular and hand-drawn in style. Jeremy Tankard's Bliss and Volker Küster's Today Sans are modern variations; Tankard commented on the genre's eclipse that his aim was to create "the first commercial typeface with an English feel since Gill Sans". Rowton Sans is inspired by Gill but has a nearly upright italic, similar to that used by Gill in his serif font Joanna. More distantly, Arthur Vanson's Chesham Sans is inspired by the British tradition of sans-serif signpainting, with many similarities to Gill's work. Bitstream's Humanist 521 was an unofficial digitisation, to which its Russian licensee ParaType added a Cyrillic version in 1997. The companies SoftMaker and Fontsite also released Gill Sans digitisations under different names including 'Chantilly', 'Gibson' and others.


title: Gill Sans

text: More loosely, Syntax by Hans Eduard Meier is similar in some ways. Released in 1968 and praised by Tschichold, it was intended to be a more dynamic, handwriting-influenced sans-serif form. Its italic is, however, more of an oblique than Gill's. Hypatia Sans, designed by Thomas Phinney and released by Adobe, was intended to be a more characterful humanist sans design. Many other fonts are influenced by Gill Sans to some extent.


title: Gill Sans

text: A logical extension of the humanist sans-serif concept is the font superfamily: a serif font and a matching humanist sans-serif with similar letterforms. Martin Majoor's FF Scala Sans is a popular example of this influenced by Gill's work; others include Charlotte Sans and Serif by Michael Gills for Letraset, Mr and Mrs Eaves by Zuzana Licko, are based on Baskerville, and Dover Sans and serif by Robin Mientjes, based on Caslon. Monotype itself released Joanna Sans in 2015, as a screen-optimised sans-serif font intended to complement (but not exactly match) Gill's serif design Joanna.


title: Gill Sans

text: Typeface designs are in many countries not copyrightable, while in others such as the United Kingdom the design is out of copyright with 70 years passed since Gill's death in 1940, by which time the metal type family was essentially completed. This makes it legally permissible to create alternative digitised versions of Gill Sans (although not necessarily of later Monotype additions to the font such as the book weight and Euro sign). However, the name "Gill Sans" remains a Monotype trademark (no. 1340167 in the US) and therefore is not eligible to be used to name any derivative font.


title: Gill Sans

text: No complete, direct open-source Gill Sans clone has yet been released. One of the most extensive is Gillius, a derivative by the Arkandis Digital Foundry project and designer Hirwen Harendal, which includes bold, italic, condensed and condensed bold styles. It is not a pure clone, but rather partly created by modifying Bitstream Vera, and adds influences from geometric fonts particularly visible in the design of the "w". K22, a foundry in Quezon City operated by the designer "Toto G", has released two Gill Sans shadowed variants as K22 EricGill Shadow (digitising the Gill Sans Shadow 338 design) and K22 EricGill Shadow Line, an inline variant, for free for "personal, private and non-commercial purposes" and for sale for commercial use. A direct clone of the medium weight, Sans Guilt, was released by Brussels open source design group OSP in 2011, but it contains several obvious glitches such as misaligned "w" and "x" characters.


title: 2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum

text: The United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, also known as the UK-wide referendum on the Parliamentary voting system was held on Thursday 5 May 2011 (the same date as local elections in many areas) in the United Kingdom (UK) to choose the method of electing MPs at subsequent general elections. It occurred as a provision of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement drawn up in 2010 (after a general election that had resulted in the first hung parliament since February 1974) and also indirectly in the aftermath of the 2009 expenses scandal. It operated under the provisions of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 and was the first national referendum to be held under provisions laid out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.


text: The referendum concerned whether or not to replace the present "first-past-the-post" system with the "alternative vote" (AV) method, and was the first national referendum to be held across the whole of the United Kingdom in the twenty-first century. The proposal to introduce AV was rejected by 67.9% of voters on a national turnout of 42%.


text: This was only the second UK-wide referendum to be held (the first was the EC referendum in 1975) and the first such to be overseen by the Electoral Commission. It is to date the only UK-wide referendum to be held on an issue not related to the European Communities or the European Union, and is also the first to have been not merely consultative: it committed the government to give effect to its decision.


text: All registered electors over 18 (British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens living in the UK and enrolled British citizens living outside) – including members of the House of Lords (who cannot vote in UK general elections) – were entitled to take part.


text: On a turnout of 42.2 percent, 68 percent voted 'No' and 32 percent voted 'Yes'. Ten of the 440 local voting areas recorded 'Yes' votes above 50 per cent: four were Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Kelvin, with the remaining six being in London.


text: The alternative vote and the single transferable vote (STV) for the House of Commons were debated in Parliament several times between 1917 and 1931, and came close to being adopted. Both the Liberals and Labour at various times supported a change from non-transferable voting to AV or STV in one-, two- and three-member constituencies. STV was adopted for the university seats (which were abolished in 1949). Both AV and STV involve voters rank-ordering preferences. However, STV is considered to be a form of proportional representation, using multi-member constituencies, while AV, in single-member constituencies, is not.


text: In 1950, all constituencies became single-member and all votes non-transferable. From then until 2010, the Labour and Conservative parties, the two parties who formed each government of the United Kingdom normally by virtue of an overall majority in the Commons, always voted down proposals for moving away from this uniform "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) voting system for the Commons. Other voting systems were introduced for various other British elections. STV was reintroduced in Northern Ireland and list-PR introduced for European elections except in Northern Ireland.


text: Whilst out of power, the Labour Party set up a working group to examine electoral reform. The resulting Plant Commission reported in 1993 and recommended the adoption, for elections to the Commons, of the supplementary vote, the system used to elect the Mayor of London. Labour's 1997 manifesto committed the party to a referendum on the voting system for the Commons and to setting up an independent commission to recommend a proportional alternative to FPTP to be put in that referendum.


text: After winning the 1997 general election, the new Labour government consequently set up the Jenkins Commission into electoral reform, supported by the Liberal Democrats, the third party in British politics in recent years and long supporters of proportional representation. (The Commission chair, Roy Jenkins, was a Liberal Democrat peer and former Labour minister.) The commission reported in September 1998 and proposed the novel alternative vote top-up or AV+ system. Having been tasked to meet a "requirement for broad proportionality", the Commission rejected both FPTP, as the status quo, and AV as options. It pointed out (chapter 3, para 21) that "the single-member constituency is not an inherent part of the British parliamentary tradition. It was unusual until 1885...Until [then] most seats were two-member..." (the English system established in 1276). Jenkins rejected AV because "so far from doing much to relieve disproportionality, it is capable of substantially adding to it". AV was also described as "disturbingly unpredictable" and "unacceptably unfair".


text: However, legislation for a referendum was not put forward. Proportional systems were introduced for the new Scottish Parliament and Welsh and London Assemblies, and the supplementary vote was introduced for mayoral elections. With House of Lords reform in 1999, AV was introduced to elect replacements for the remaining 92 hereditary peers who sit in the Lords.


text: At the next general election in 2001, Labour's manifesto stated that the party would review the experience of the new systems (in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and the Jenkins report, to assess the possibility of changes to the Commons, which would still be subject to a referendum. Electoral reform in the Commons remained at a standstill, although in the Scottish Parliament, a coalition of Labour and the Liberal Democrats introduced STV for local elections in Scotland.


text: In February 2010, the Labour government (which had been in power since 1997) used its majority to pass an amendment to its Constitutional Reform Bill to include a referendum on the introduction of AV to be held in the next Parliament, citing a desire to restore trust in Parliament in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal. A Liberal Democrat amendment to hold the referendum earlier, and on STV, was defeated by 476 votes to 69. There was insufficient time remaining in the term of that Parliament for the Bill to become law before Parliament was dissolved; and so the move was dismissed by several Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs as a political manoeuvre.


text: In the ensuing 2010 general election campaign, the Labour manifesto supported the introduction of AV via a referendum, to "ensure that every MP is supported by the majority of their constituents voting at each election". The Liberal Democrats argued for proportional representation, preferably by single transferable vote, and the Conservatives argued for the retention of FPTP. Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats proposed reducing the number of MPs, while the Conservative Party argued for more equal sized constituencies.


text: The 2010 UK general election held on 6 May resulted in a hung parliament, the first since 1974, leading to a period of negotiations. Honouring a pre-election pledge, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg entered into negotiations with the Conservatives as the party who had won most votes and most seats. William Hague offered the Liberal Democrats a referendum on the alternative vote as part of a "final offer" in the Conservatives' negotiations for a proposed "full and proper" coalition between the two parties. Hague and Conservative leader David Cameron said that this was in response to Labour offering the Liberal Democrats the alternative vote without a referendum, although it later emerged that Labour had not made such an offer. Negotiations between the Liberal Democrats and Labour quickly ended. On 11 May 2010, Prime Minister Gordon Brown stepped down, followed by the establishment of a full coalition government between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. David Cameron became Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister.


text: The initial Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement, dated 11 May 2010, detailed the issues which had been agreed between the two parties before they committed to entering into coalition. On the issue of an electoral reform referendum, it stated:


text: Following the agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, with the new coalition government now formed, a commitment to the referendum was included in the coalition government's Queen's Speech on 25 May 2010 as the Parliamentary Reform Bill, although with no date set for the referendum.


text: The coalition agreement committed both parties in the government to "whip" their Parliamentary parties in both the House of Commons and House of Lords to support the bill, thereby ensuring that it could reasonably be expected to be passed into law due to the simple majority in the Commons of the combined Conservative – Liberal Democrat voting bloc. The Lords can only delay, rather than block, a Bill passed by the Commons.


text: According to "The Guardian", reporting after the Queen's Speech, unnamed pro-referendum Cabinet members were believed to want the referendum held on 5 May 2011, to coincide with elections to the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly and many English local councils. Nick Clegg's prior hope of a referendum as early as October 2010 was considered unrealistic due to the parliamentary programme announced in the speech.


text: On 5 July 2010, Clegg announced the detailed plans for the Parliamentary Reform Bill in a statement to the House of Commons, as part of the wider package of voting and election reforms set out in the coalition agreement, including setting the referendum date as 5 May 2011. In addition to a referendum on AV, the reform bill also included the other coalition measures of reducing and resizing the Westminster parliamentary constituencies, introducing fixed-term parliaments and setting the date of the next general election as 7 May 2015, changing the voting threshold for early dissolution of parliament to 55%, and providing for the recall of MPs by their constituents.


text: The plans to hold the vote on 5 May faced criticism from some Conservative MPs as distorting the result because turnout was predicted to be higher in those places where local elections were also held. It also faced criticism from Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs for the effects it would have on their devolved elections on the same day, while Clegg himself faced further criticism from Labour, and implied lessening support from Liberal Democrat MPs, for backing down on earlier Liberal Democrat positions on proportional representation. Clegg defended the date, stating the referendum question was simple and that it would save £17m in costs. Over 45 MPs, mostly Conservatives, signed a motion calling for the date to be moved. In September 2010, Ian Davidson MP, chairman of the Commons Scottish affairs select committee, stated after consultation with the Scottish Parliament that there was "unanimous" opposition among Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) to the referendum date, following the "chaos" of the combined 2007 Scottish parliament and council elections.


text: On 22 July 2010, the proposal for fixed-term parliaments was put before parliament as the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, while the proposals for the AV referendum, change in dissolution arrangements and equalising constituencies were put forward in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which accordingly had three parts: Part 1, Voting system for parliamentary elections; Part 2, Parliamentary constituencies; and Part 3, Miscellaneous and general. The Bill contained the text of a proposed referendum question.


text: This wording was criticised by the Electoral Commission, saying that "particularly those with lower levels of education or literacy, found the question hard work and did not understand it". The Electoral Commission recommended a changed wording to make the issue easier to understand, and the government subsequently amended the Bill to bring it into line with the Electoral Commission's recommendations.


text: An amendment proposed in the Lords by Lord Rooker (Independent) to require a minimum turn-out of 40% for the referendum to be valid was supported by Labour, a majority of cross-benchers and ten rebel Conservatives, and was passed by one vote. Labour's 2010 AV referendum proposal had not included such a threshold and they were criticised for seeking to impose one for this referendum, while the 2011 Welsh referendum, held under a Bill passed by Labour, also had no threshold (and would have failed if it had had one, as turnout in that referendum was only 35%). In the latter hours of debate, a "game" of parliamentary ping-pong saw the Commons overturning the threshold amendment before it was reimposed by the Lords, and then removed again.


text: After some compromises between the two Houses on amendments, the Bill was passed into law on 16 February 2011.


text: The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 provides for the holding of the referendum, and the related changes had it led to the adoption of AV. Passing the bill into law was a necessary measure before the referendum could actually take place. It received Royal assent on 16 February 2011.


text: Based on the coalition agreement, the referendum was a simple majority yes/no question as to whether to replace the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system used in general elections with the alternative vote (AV) system.


text: The referendum took place on 5 May 2011, coinciding with various United Kingdom local elections, the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, the 2011 Welsh Assembly election and the 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election. The deadline for voters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to register to vote in the referendum was midnight on Thursday 14 April 2011, whilst voters in Scotland had until midnight on Friday 15 April 2011 to register. Anyone in the United Kingdom who qualified as an anonymous elector had until midnight on Tuesday 26 April 2011 to register. In the vote count, the referendum ballots in England, Scotland and Wales were counted after the various election ballots, from 4 pm on 6 May 2011. The referendum had no minimum threshold on the required turnout needed for the result to be valid.


text: Anyone on the electoral register and eligible to vote in a general election was entitled to vote in the referendum. This includes British citizens living outside the UK who were registered as overseas electors. In addition, Members of the House of Lords, who are not eligible to vote in a general election, were entitled to vote in the referendum, provided they were entitled to vote in local elections.


text: The coalition partners campaigned on opposite sides, with the Liberal Democrats supporting AV and the Conservatives opposing it.


text: Despite the Conservative Party's formal position, party members who were aligned to the Conservative Action for Electoral Reform, an internal party group in favour of electoral reform, campaigned in favour, while a BBC News report described "some Tory MPs" as being "relaxed" about a 'Yes' result. Some Conservatives campaigned in favour of AV, "e.g." Andrew Boff AM; and Andrew Marshall, former head of the Conservative Group on Camden Council. The Conservative Party uses a system of successive ballots to elect its leader, which has been described as a "form of AV" (since the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated in each round), but unlike AV, the candidates are not ranked in order of preference during each ballot.


text: Labour elected a new leader following the 2010 general election and many of the leadership candidates supported AV, including winner Ed Miliband; however, Andy Burnham was critical of the referendum. Former Labour Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was president of the No to AV campaign. Other supporters of the party also used the referendum to attack the coalition and voiced opposition to the bill currently providing for the referendum, on the grounds of the inclusion of boundary changes that are viewed as beneficial to the Conservative Party.


text: Plaid Cymru supported AV, but did not take an active role in the campaign, as it focused on separate Welsh votes on the same day. The Scottish National Party, while maintaining its longstanding support for PR-STV, also supported a 'Yes' vote in the referendum. Both of these parties opposed the planned referendum date, as they did not want it held at the same time as the 2011 Welsh Assembly elections and the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections respectively.


text: Among the Northern Irish parties, the Alliance Party and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) supported AV. SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie announced that her party would actively campaign in favour. Sinn Féin also supported a 'Yes' vote, but the Democratic Unionist Party supported a 'No' vote.


text: The Green Party of England and Wales voted in favour of joining the campaign for AV in the referendum at its September 2010 party conference. Many leading figures in the party supported the change as a step towards their preferred system, proportional representation. Previously, the party's leader and only MP, Caroline Lucas, had called for a referendum that included a choice of proportional representation. However, at the party's Conference, Deputy Leader Adrian Ramsay argued that "If you vote No in this referendum, nobody would know whether you were rejecting AV because you wanted genuine reform, or were simply opposing any reform."


text: The UK Independence Party's National Executive Committee formally announced that it would be supporting Alternative Vote, although it would prefer a proportional system. An e-mail was sent to members informing them that they might vote against AV, but were not allowed to campaign.


text: The Respect Party also supported proportional representation and campaigned against AV. Rob Hoveman, on behalf of Tower Hamlets Respect, wrote to the "East London Advertiser" on 24 February 2011 urging a 'No' vote on the grounds that the AV system created an even greater imbalance between votes and seats, and urging a proportional system instead.


text: The Scottish Green Party also supported AV, although it prefers the adoption of STV for all elections.


text: The Ulster Unionist Party and Traditional Unionist Voice supported a 'No' vote. The Green Party Northern Ireland also opposed the change to AV, as they viewed it as a betrayal of proportional representation.


text: The English Democrats, the Christian Peoples Alliance and the Christian Party all supported AV. Pirate Party UK endorsed a 'Yes' vote, with over 90% of members expressing support for AV.


text: The Liberal Party agreed to support the 'Yes' campaign, seeing AV as "a potential 'stepping stone' to further reform" and STV.


text: Mebyon Kernow, the Cornish nationalist party, favoured proportional representation and was disappointed that the referendum did not give voters that option. However, leader Dick Cole announced on 1 April 2011 that Mebyon Kernow would be supporting the 'Yes' campaign.


text: The Socialist Party of Great Britain adopted a neutral position, arguing "what matters more is what we use our votes for" in the context of class struggle.


text: The Socialist Party opposed AV, pointing out that it is not more proportional than First Past the Post.


text: The Alliance for Workers' Liberty opposed AV, arguing that it did not offer progress on the party's main democratic demands.


text: Prime Minister David Cameron of the Conservative Party and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats made speeches backing the 'No' and 'Yes' campaigns respectively on the same day, but were thereafter not expected to take much part in the campaigns, although both were active since. Cameron described AV as "undemocratic, obscure, unfair and crazy". He was praised for his intervention by back-bench Conservative MPs.


text: Labour leader Ed Miliband said he would take an active part in the 'Yes' campaign, while Wales's First Minister and Welsh Labour Leader Carwyn Jones and Scottish Labour Leader Iain Gray both also supported AV. Also supporting the 'Yes' campaign were over 50 Labour MPs including Alan Johnson, Peter Hain, Hilary Benn, John Denham, Liam Byrne, Sadiq Khan, Tessa Jowell, Ben Bradshaw, Douglas Alexander, Alistair Darling, Diane Abbott and Debbie Abrahams. Labour peers supporting the 'Yes' campaign include Lord Mandelson, Oona King, Raymond Plant (chair of Labour's 1993 working group on electoral reform), Andrew Adonis, Anthony Giddens, former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, former deputy leader Roy Hattersley and Glenys Kinnock, while further Labour figures supporting AV included former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, Michael Cashman MEP, Tony Benn, and former Labour council candidate and wife of the Speaker Sally Bercow.


text: The Liberal Democrats supported a 'Yes' vote and many individual Liberal Democrat politicians were active in the 'Yes' campaign. The SNP leader, Alex Salmond, supported a 'Yes' vote. UKIP supported a 'Yes' vote and their principal spokesmen on the campaign were William Dartmouth MEP and party leader, Nigel Farage MEP.


text: Supporting the 'No' campaign were both senior Conservative (including William Hague, Kenneth Clarke, George Osborne, Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Steven Norris and Baroness Warsi) and Labour politicians (including John Prescott, Margaret Beckett (president of the No to AV campaign), David Blunkett, John Reid, Tony Lloyd, John Healey, Caroline Flint, Hazel Blears, Beverley Hughes, Paul Boateng, John Hutton and Lord Falconer). The Conservative Party announced that seven MPs (Conor Burns, George Eustice, Sam Gyimah, Kwasi Kwarteng, Charlotte Leslie, Priti Patel, Chris Skidmore) and two former candidates (Chris Philp and Maggie Throup, later elected as MPs) would act as party spokespersons in the 'No' campaign. Overall, most Labour MPs supported the 'No' campaign rather than the 'Yes' campaign, with other notable opponents of AV including Paul Goggins, Ann Clwyd, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Austin Mitchell, Margaret Hodge, Lindsay Hoyle, Jim Fitzpatrick, Dennis Skinner and Keith Vaz. Also supporting a 'No' vote were crossbencher and former SDP leader Lord Owen, who supported the No to AV But Yes to PR campaign.


text: Conservative politician Michael Gove was initially mistakenly announced by the No to AV campaign as opposing AV, but his advisers stated that he had never been involved in the campaign and had not yet made up his mind. Over five Labour MPs announced as opposing AV were also found to have been wrongly included: for example, Alun Michael supported a 'Yes' vote, while Meg Hillier did not lend her name to either campaign.


text: Some Conservative politicians did support AV, including John Strafford, a former member of the Conservative Party's national executive, who chaired the Conservative campaign in favour of a 'Yes' vote.


text: Two campaign groups were established in response to the proposed referendum, one on each side of the debate. NOtoAV was established to campaign against the change to the alternative vote and YES! To Fairer Votes was established to campaign in favour.


text: Take Back Parliament, the Electoral Reform Society, Make My Vote Count, and Unlock Democracy all campaigned in favour of the change to AV.


text: The GMB Union opposes the change to AV. It provided "substantial" sums of money to the 'No' campaign and marshalled its members to vote 'No'. Unions generally supported the 'No' campaign, with only Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers' Union, supporting AV.


text: Compass supported the change to the AV and urged the Labour Party to do so too. It prefers a switch to a more proportional system, but viewed AV as superior to FPTP. ResPublica supported the change to AV and urged the Conservative Party to do so too. Policy Exchange opposed the change to AV. Ekklesia supported the change to AV.


text: A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research in January 2011 was very critical of FPTP's flaws, while a report in April 2011 came down in support of AV over FPTP. However, the IPPR also previously called for a wider choice in the referendum and favours Alternative Vote Plus over FPTP or AV.


text: A number of academics entered the debate, either in mainstream media or through blogs, social networking, or academic publication.


text: Those in favour of AV included Timothy Gowers (Cambridge), David Held (LSE), Patrick Dunleavy (LSE), and Helen Margetts (Oxford), Thom Brooks (Newcastle University), Alastair McMillan (Sheffield), and Ben Saunders (Stirling).


text: Dan Felsenthal (LSE) criticised AV as "deeply flawed", though he also described it as "a minor improvement on the current first-past-the-post system".


text: David S. Moon (Sheffield) argued that AV would be worse than FPTP, though he regards both as flawed and supports a move to proportional representation.


text: At a Voting Power in Practice workshop, held at the Chateau du Baffy, in France from 30 July to 2 August 2010, 22 voting theory specialists voted to select the "best voting procedure" to elect a candidate from a selection of three or more. First past the post received no votes, compared to 10 for AV, although another system, Approval Voting (not on offer in the referendum), received 15 votes.


text: On 11 March 29 historians, including Niall Ferguson, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Andrew Roberts and David Starkey, wrote to the Times expressing opposition to the adoption of the Alternative Vote.


text: Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth support the Yes! To Fairer Votes campaign, as do the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, Operation Black Vote, the New Economics Foundation, 38 Degrees and bassac. Educational trust The Constitution Society has also worked to increase public awareness of the issues involved in the debate.


text: "The Guardian", "The Independent", the "Daily Mirror", and the "Financial Times" supported the change to AV. The "Daily Mail", "The Times", the "Daily Express" and "The Daily Telegraph" opposed AV. "The Economist" supported a 'No' vote, but did want to see reform of the current electoral system. Socialist daily newspaper the "Morning Star" urged a 'No' vote, on the basis that AV would be no more fair than FPTP; the paper argued for single transferable vote instead.


text: Supporting the 'Yes' campaign were campaigner and musician Billy Bragg; broadcaster and Labour peer Melvyn Bragg; campaigner and actress Joanna Lumley; Labour supporter and broadcaster Tony Robinson; designer and ethical fashion campaigner Amisha Ghadiali; Annette Lawson, chairwoman of the national alliance of women's organisations; and Simon Woolley, director and co-founder of Operation Black Vote. AV was also supported by Kevin Maguire, associate editor of the "Daily Mirror" newspaper, and journalist Polly Toynbee.


text: Celebrities supporting a 'Yes' vote included comedian David Mitchell, comedian and actor Eddie Izzard, author Naomi Alderman, playwright Bonnie Greer, comedian Francesca Martinez, actress Helena Bonham Carter, Oscar award-winning actor Colin Firth, actor and Liberal Democrat supporter John Cleese, comedian Stephen Fry, actor Art Malik, John O'Farrell, actor Richard Wilson, editor and writer Rowan Davies, broadcaster Greg Dyke, co-founder of the Ministry of Sound James Palumbo, actor and comedian David Schneider, Kriss Akabusi, Chris Addison, Josie Long, Benjamin Zephaniah and Honor Blackman. Comedian and actor Steve Coogan also supported a 'Yes' vote.


text: Supporting a 'No' vote were television presenter Esther Rantzen, scientist and Labour peer Lord Winston; nightclub impresario Peter Stringfellow, cricketers David Gower and Darren Gough, Olympic rower James Cracknell and F1 boss Sir Frank Williams. Actor and television presenter Ross Kemp also backed the 'No' campaign.


text: Also supporting the 'Yes' campaign were several Church of England bishops: Michael Langrish, Bishop of Exeter; Colin Buchanan, former area Bishop of Woolwich; Alan Smith, Bishop of St Albans; John Packer, Bishop of Ripon and Leeds; Martyn Jarrett, Bishop of Beverley; Nigel Stock, Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich; Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham; Michael Perham, Bishop of Gloucester; Peter Dawes, former Bishop of Derby; and David Atkinson, former Bishop of Thetford.


text: Jonathan Bartley (founder and co-director of the Ekklesia religious thinktank, and who was later co-leader of the Green Party) supported the referendum.


text: Anti-corruption campaigner, former broadcaster and independent MP, Martin Bell supported AV. A group of leading businesswomen and campaigners published a letter in "The Guardian" backing a 'Yes' vote on 28 April 2011, with signatories including Alexandra Shulman (editor of "Vogue"), illustrator Daisy de Villeneuve, writer Gillian Slovo, human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy, Hilary Wainwright (editor of "Red Pepper"), journalist Isabel Hilton, Jacqueline Rose, writer Jay Griffiths, broadcaster Joan Bakewell, rabbi Julia Neuberger, fashion designer Patsy Puttnam, journalist Polly Toynbee, Janet Todd (President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge), Chair of Young Labour Susan Nash, activist Tamsin Omond, financial consultant Tessa Tennant, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, gynaecologist/campaigner Wendy Savage and journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.


text: By around the beginning of May, the 'Yes' campaign had spent £3.4 million compared to £2.6 million by the 'No' campaign.


text: The 'Yes' campaign revealed that it had raised £2 million (as of 15 February 2011), with 95% coming from two donors, the Electoral Reform Society and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. The 'Yes' campaign also received five-figure sums from Alan Parker, who is close to both Gordon Brown and David Cameron, and Paul Marshall, a donor to the Liberal Democrats.


text: There were initially accusations in the press that the 'No' campaign was refusing to publish details of their donors and the 'Yes' campaign was quicker than the 'No' campaign in doing this, but subsequently said on 18 February 2011 they would do so before the referendum date. However, they had not done so by 28 March 2011 when the 'Yes' campaign published an updated list of all donors of over £7,500, and launched a petition calling on the 'No' campaign to do the same.


text: The 'No' campaign released a list of donors on 9 April 2011, which included several major donors to the Conservative Party, including Lord (John) Sainsbury, Michael Farmer, Lord Harris, Lord Fink and Lord Edmiston. In total, the 'No' campaign had raised by that date £1.8m in donations of over the declarable limit of £7,500 from 41 donors, with the largest being from billionaire Peter Cruddas, founder of the CMC spread betting firm, who gave £400,000.


text: The "Guardian" newspaper identified 42 of the 53 named donors to the 'No' campaign as donors to the Conservative Party, while one, the GMB union, is a donor to the Labour Party, and nine were not identified in official donor records. The remaining donor is official funding from the electoral commission. The donors include seven Conservative peers. They quote Margaret Beckett, a leading Labour 'No' campaigner, as saying this situation is a "necessary evil".


text: While the 'Yes' campaign released figures of all donations over the declarable limit after it was set up, the 'No' campaign did not declare any donations prior to the referendum bill receiving Royal assent, for it was not required to do under the relevant regulations. David Blunkett, a 'No' campaigner, called on the 'No' campaign to do so.


text: The initial part of the campaign was overshadowed by continuing Parliamentary battles over the introducing Bill, which had threatened to delay the referendum date. Launching their campaign, supporters of AV argued that the need for candidates to campaign for later preferences would encourage candidates to appeal to a broader cross-section of the electorate. They also pointed out the declining number of people voting for the main two parties in the UK over recent decades.


text: The 'Yes' campaign sought to present its campaign as being on behalf of members of the public. The 'No' campaign sought to play on the unpopularity of the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, and to present the referendum as an opportunity to punish Clegg at the polls. It also claimed that Clegg described AV as "a miserable little compromise" before the 2010 general election. The fuller quote says: "I am not going to settle for a miserable little compromise thrashed out by the Labour Party." However, the Conservatives rejected the possibility of introducing PR in coalition negotiations, leading to a referendum in which the choice was between FPTP and AV.


text: While officially supporting a 'No' vote, the Conservative Party leadership reportedly initially held back on campaigning and advised major Conservative Party donors not to donate to the 'No' campaign. However, this position changed in January 2011 and the leadership became more involved, with requests to donors to fund the 'No' campaign and staff and party headquarters becoming directly involved in campaigning.


text: In mid-February, the prime minister, David Cameron, and the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, made opposing speeches advocating a 'No' and 'Yes' result respectively. Clegg argued that AV would mean "fairer votes" and that FPTP produced more safe seats, and linked these to the MPs' expenses scandal. He said that AV would encourage politicians to work to appeal to more of the electorate rather than just their core supporters. He stated that "I think this [AV] is a natural evolution which reflects the fact that politics is no longer now, as it was 50 years ago when everybody was very happy to plump for the blue corner or the red corner, people want more choice now."


text: Cameron, in contrast, argued that FPTP delivers more accountability, and claimed it reduces the number of hung parliaments. He insisted that "when it comes to our democracy, Britain shouldn't have to settle for anyone's second choice." He also claimed, on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme on 3 May 2011, that AV would undermine the fundamental principle of "one person, one vote". Despite the coalition parties being on different sides in the campaign, Cameron insisted that "whatever the result", the coalition would continue.


text: Caroline Lucas, head of the Green Party of England and Wales said in support of AV that "they can vote for what they believe in and I think that will be very liberating for a lot of people".


text: The 'No' campaign launched with a claim that choosing AV would cost £250 million. However, this figure was criticised on several grounds. For example, it included an estimated £82 million for holding the referendum, that would have applied whatever the referendum outcome, and failed to take into account costs saved from holding the referendum at the same time as other elections. The £250 million figure also included £130 million for the cost of electronic voting systems, although these were not used by the largest country then using AV, Australia, and there were no plans to use such machines if AV were introduced in the UK. (The referendum actually cost about £75 million, below estimates made at the time, according to the Electoral Commission.)


text: Labour MP Douglas Alexander described the figure claimed as a "lie". A "Channel 4 News" Fact Check concluded that the specific claim that AV would require electronic counting machines, the main component of the £250 million figure, was "fiction". Alan Renwick likewise dismissed the suggestion that voting machines would be required, saying "The No camp [...] say that AV would require expensive voting machines. [...] that is just plain false."


text: The Treasury stated that the adoption of AV would not lead to any spending cuts. Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury and a supporter of AV himself, stated in a leaked letter that, "The Government has no plans to reopen departmental spending review settlements as a consequence of a 'Yes' vote in the referendum on AV." He also told the "Independent on Sunday" newspaper: "I don't expect to see any increase in the cost of holding a general election if the British people vote yes. There's no good reason to believe that even under a new voting system an election would need to be more expensive."


text: The 'No' campaign launched a series of advertisements on posters and in regional newspapers based on the £250 million figure. Ads included:


text: The 'Yes' campaign described these as "shameful", a "smear" and "lies", and complained to the Electoral Commission and Advertising Standards Authority, both of whom stated that they did not have powers to regulate individual adverts in the campaign.


text: On 5 May, David Blunkett, one of the Labour Party former-government ministers who had supported the 'No' campaign, admitted that the £250 million figure used by the 'No' campaign had been fabricated, and that the 'No' campaign had knowingly lied about the figure and other claims during the campaign.


text: Supporters of a 'No' vote claimed that AV would lead to more coalition governments, but models of recent UK elections suggest that this may not be the case, The BBC had modelled the possible effect of AV on every general election since 1983 and concluded that the overall result would not have changed in any of them. Paddy Ashdown pointed out that in the twentieth century Australia had fewer hung Parliaments under AV than the UK had under FPTP. The report of the Independent Commission on the Voting System, issued in 1998, stated that "There is not the slightest reason to think that AV would reduce the stability of government; it might indeed lead to larger parliamentary majorities."


text: During the referendum campaign a BBC "Newsnight" special on the referendum suggested that AV would lead to a small increase in the number of hung results and Alan Renwick, author of "A Citizen's Guide To Electoral Reform", wrote in "Total Politics" magazine that "AV makes election results more volatile, exaggerating landslides on the one hand and making coalitions more common on the other." However, Dennis Leech, a professor at Warwick University, has argued that coalitions will not be any more likely under AV. Vernon Bogdanor stated that:


text: Under AV each voters casts a "single transferable vote". The 'No' campaign argued that some people would get multiple votes under AV, and that the system was therefore contrary to the principle of "one person, one vote" (which they adopted as a slogan of their campaign). This argument was heavily criticised by Ipsos MORI, Channel Four News Fact Check, and many academic commentators. The FullFact site stated "some of these claims have trod a fine line between accuracy and error". The Ipsos MORI Guide to AV stated that:


text: this system [AV] does not involve some people getting more votes than others. Every voter gets just one vote, which is counted several times. Your second preference is not a second vote, it is an instruction about how you want your (only) vote to be used if it would be wasted because your first choice candidate can't win. Each vote is counted in each round of voting


text: The 'Yes' campaign argued that AV would be fairer, and that it would reduce or even eliminate 'safe seats', making MPs work harder. This was contested by the 'No' campaign, again with reference to Australia. This view was supported by Alan Renwick, who stated that "AV wouldn't significantly change the number of safe seats. Even the claim that AV would make a big dent in the number of safe seats goes further than the facts support." However, the New Economics Foundation think-tank, which supported a 'Yes' vote, published modelling showing that with the introduction of AV the number of very marginal seats would have increased from 81 to 125, and the number of very safe seats would decrease from 331 to 271, although there would also have been an increase in the number of quite safe seats. The Foundation found that, with FPTP, the average number of seats changing hands per election was 13% and this could rise to 16% under AV, modestly increasing voter power overall, but concluded "that neither system is very good at translating votes into electoral power".


text: The 'Yes' campaign argued that AV would ensure that every MP was supported by an overall majority, more than 50% of the voters. However, in its Guide to AV, Ipsos MORI stated "this is not really true, but maybe it's a defensible simplification". AV ensures that a candidate is elected with the support of at least 50% of voters who have expressed a preference between the final two candidates in the contest. If some voters have indicated that they are indifferent between the final two, by not ranking either of them on the ballot paper, then the winner may be elected with the support of fewer than 50% of all votes cast.


text: Rawlings and Thrasher stated that "the claims that AV will guarantee local majority support can only be validated if every voter is compelled or chooses to cast a full range of preferences. There seems little prospect of that happening in a general election conducted under AV in the UK." The "Channel 4 News" FactCheck stated that it "is right that candidates will have to aim for 50% of votes, though it is true that some candidates will end up being elected on fewer than 50% of all the votes cast".


text: In the most recent general election, roughly two-thirds of MPs had been elected without an overall majority. Rawlings and Thrasher predicted that "more than four out of ten" MPs would still not have majority support under AV, while Ipsos MORI stated "It is certainly true that in many constituencies ... MPs elected under AV will have the support of a higher proportion of voters than they did under FPTP".


text: The 'No' campaign argued that only three countries use AV. It also stated that the Australian public wish to do away with AV, a claim that is false. At the time of the referendum, three nations used AV for parliamentary elections: Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji. However, AV is also used internationally for many other forms of election.


text: AV is used for Irish presidential elections and for by-elections in the Republic of Ireland, and in some local elections in New Zealand. In the United Kingdom, AV is used by MPs to elect the chairs of select committees, the Speaker of the House of Lords, and the Deputy Speakers of the House of Commons. AV is also used in by-elections to select hereditary peers for the House of Lords. A variant of AV called the supplementary vote is used to elect the Mayor of London and the mayors of other UK cities. A related system called the exhaustive ballot is used to elect the Speaker of the House of Commons. AV is used for various elections in the United States (see AV in the United States).


text: AV is used by many private organisations in the UK, for example in the leadership elections of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, while the leadership elections for the Conservative Party use the related exhaustive ballot. AV is also used by the Royal British Legion, and in certain trade unions and students' unions. In the US, AV is now used to decide the winner of the Oscar for Best Picture.


text: A method similar to AV, called the two round system, is widely used internationally. For example, it is used to elect the National Assembly of France and the Presidents of eighty nations. The United States also uses primaries, followed by a second round, for the President, House of Representatives and the Senate.


text: PR-STV is another related system. It uses a preferential ballot like AV but is used for elections in multi-seat constituencies. It is used for national elections in the Republic of Ireland, Australia and Malta, for elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and for other purposes in many other nations.


text: The 'No' campaign stressed that FPTP is used in over fifty countries, with a combined population of approximately 2.4 billion people. FPTP is used for legislature elections in the United States, India and Canada, as well as other non-G20 nations. It is used for presidential elections in twenty countries, and for various forms of election in 45 others (35 of these are Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations or British Overseas Territories).


text: Some opponents of AV saw it as a stepping stone toward unwanted (for them) proportional representation, while some supporters of proportional representation saw the referendum as a lost opportunity that would delay a move to proportional representation. Both positions have been described as "entirely speculative". An "Evening Standard" editorial described the result of a 'No' win: "the issue of electoral reform will be shelved for a generation". On the other hand, Thomas Lundberg, an electoral systems specialist at Glasgow University, wrote in a Political Studies Association paper: "Anything that reduces the ability of small parties to win seats – a process that has been going on since the 1970s at British general elections – could be detrimental to the prospect of a PR transition. Because AV raises the threshold to victory to 50 per cent plus one vote, small parties, which often win seats on low vote shares, might be threatened unless they can win significant numbers of transfers from voters who prefer other parties."


text: Tactical voting means that a voter supports a candidate other than his or her sincere preference, in order to get a relatively desirable outcome. No conventional (i.e. ordinal) voting system can eliminate tactical voting (under the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem), and situations in which AV is susceptible to tactical voting can be demonstrated. The Yes to AV campaign argued that, under AV, such scenarios were rare or theoretical. The independent market research group Ipsos MORI has published a guide to AV. This states that the scenario in which tactical voting might influence the outcome of an AV election "is very easy to demonstrate in the case of AV and is unlikely to be especially rare". It is however true that, under AV, it is harder for the tactical voter to know what effect he is going to have so the prevalence of what is strictly defined as "tactical voting" may be reduced under AV.


text: First-past-the-post is a monotonic voting system, while AV meets independence of clones and mutual majority criteria.


text: The British National Party (BNP) supported a 'No' vote in the referendum. In response, Conservative chairman and 'No' supporter Baroness Warsi described AV as "a system which rewards extremism and gives oxygen to extremist groups". In response, the 'Yes' campaign launched advertising with the slogan, "Say No to the BNP, Say Yes on 5th May" pointing out the BNP's opposition to AV. The "Channel 4 News" FactCheck concluded the 'Yes' campaign was correct, saying:


text: The FactCheck went on to quote the BNP deputy chairman Simon Darby, who said: "AV is a retrograde step – it's worse than what we've got now[.] We are never going to get our feet under the table under the AV system." The No2AV-Yes2PR campaign website countered that "AV does confer a subtle benefit on extremists like the BNP: increased legitimacy. AV enables people to cast 'free' protest vote safe in the knowledge that they can they cast a second preference for the party they actually want."


text: Dennis Leech, a professor at Warwick University, has argued that extremists like the BNP are more likely to win under FPTP, but he has also argued against the notion that AV automatically favours centrists:


text: The final weeks of the campaign were marked by an increased rancour, with a battle of words between members of the Coalition government. For example, Liberal Democrat energy secretary Chris Huhne threatened legal action over "untruths" that he claimed were told by Conservative Chancellor George Osborne that new voting machines would be required by AV, despite these not being used in Australian elections under AV and no plans to introduce them. The 'No' campaign countered, quoting a senior returning officer (Anthony Mayer), who said that voting machines would be essential with AV if results are desired as quickly as today, rather than counting over the weekend after a general election. See the row over possible costs section for a fuller discussion.


text: Huhne was reported to have strongly criticised Conservative colleagues at a Cabinet meeting in early May 2011 for the 'No' campaign's material. However, one of the key 'No' campaign leaflets he targeted, showing a newborn baby with the slogan "She needs a maternity unit, not an alternative voting system", was developed by Dan Hodges, a Labour Party campaigner working for NO2AV.


text: Leading members of the Labour Party on different sides of the campaign also stepped up to campaign for the votes of Labour supporters, including a major newspaper interview with Peter Mandelson in which he called for a 'Yes' vote and a major advertising campaign by the Labour Yes to Fairer Votes group, both arguing that Labour voters should vote 'Yes' because of Conservative support for a 'No' result. However, the 'No' campaign responded by pointing out that a majority of Labour MPs opposed AV (130 out of 255 opposing AV, 86 in support). In the last week a grassroots campaign featuring Reform Cat in the YouTube video "Is your Cat confused about the referendum on the voting system on the 5th May?" which was released on 27 April 2011, gained more views than either official campaign videos.


text: Under the alternative vote system proposed in the referendum, voters would still be electing just one candidate associated with one geographic constituency. Instead of simply voting for one candidate on the ballot paper (with an 'X'), the voter would instead be asked to rank one or more of the candidates in order of preference. If after first preferences have been counted, no one candidate has a majority of the votes cast, then the bottom candidate will be eliminated and votes for that candidate are transferred to each voter's next available preference. The process continues repeatedly until one candidate reaches a majority and wins. The system proposed was a form of "optional preferential voting", in that voters would not be obliged to rank every candidate in order of preference in order to cast a valid vote.


text: Schedule 10 to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 proposed to amend Paragraph (5) of Rule 29 of Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983 (the "Parliamentary Election Rules"), so that the instructions to the voter displayed in ballot boxes would be changed from an instruction to vote for only one candidate, to read:


text: This was repealed by the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 (Repeal of Alternative Vote Provisions) Order 2011.


text: The referendum was held nationally across all four countries of the United Kingdom as a single majority vote in 440 voting areas and twelve regional count areas. In England the districts were used as the voting areas before being combined into the nine regional count areas. In Scotland the constituencies of the Scottish Parliament were the voting areas, and in Wales the voting areas were the constituencies of the National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland was a voting area.


text: The following table shows the breakdown of the voting areas for the referendum within the United Kingdom.


text: According to the Electoral Commission, the votes were first counted in the 440 voting areas across the United Kingdom. Except in Northern Ireland, the results from these local counts were relayed to twelve regional count areas to be officially announced by the regional counting officers. Scotland and Wales were each classed as one regional count area, so votes in those areas were counted and declared locally within Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly constituency boundaries before the results were declared nationally. Northern Ireland was also classed as a single regional count area but its votes were counted and declared nationally as one unit. In England, the votes were counted and declared locally at district council level, and those results were carried over to the nine remaining regional count areas. The national result for the whole United Kingdom was announced at the Platinum Suite at the Exhibition Centre London (ExCel) by the chief counting officer (CCO) and chair of the Electoral Commission, Jenny Watson, at 0100 BST on Saturday 7 May 2011 after all 440 voting areas and UK regions had declared their results. With a national turnout of 42% across the United Kingdom the target to secure the majority win for the winning side was 9,639,512 votes. The decision by the electorate was a decisive 'No' vote to adopting the alternative vote system in all future United Kingdom general elections by a majority of 6,860,516 votes over those who had voted 'Yes' in favour of the proposal.


text: Ahead of the last results from Northern Ireland, the result was confirmed as a 'No', as it was mathematically impossible for the 'Yes' voters to outnumber them.


text: Further details of campaigning decisions emerged after the referendum result, with Dan Hodges reporting that the Conservatives had endorsed the 'No' campaign's targeting of Nick Clegg, although they had originally opposed the idea. Hodges also reported that an aide of David Cameron secretly met 'No' campaign leaders in a hotel room in order to stop the Liberal Democrats finding out the scale of Conservative involvement.


text: The Coalition government continued and sought to present a united front after the fractious campaign. Former Conservative Cabinet minister Michael Portillo criticised Cameron, saying he "forgot the importance of courtesy" towards Clegg and the Liberal Democrats and, thus, the survival of the Coalition, when he joined what Portillo called "the disgraceful No campaign".


text: On 8 July 2011, the alternative vote provisions were repealed, bringing the statutory process that had initiated the referendum to an end.


text: The decisive 'No' vote continues to be cited as an endorsement of first-past-the-post and a rejection of proportional representation. The Conservative government response to a 2016–17 parliamentary petition demanding proportional representation said that "A referendum on changing the voting system was held in 2011 and the public voted overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the FPTP system." Tim Ivorson of the electoral reform campaign group Make Votes Matter responded by quoting the petition's text that "The UK has never had a say on PR. As David Cameron himself said, the AV referendum was on a system that is often less proportional than FPTP, so the rejection of AV could not possibly be a rejection of PR."


title: Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online

text: Due to the incident that occurred in VR MMORPG "Sword Art Online"—where 10,000 players were trapped in the game on launch day—the popularity of VR games has plummeted due to fear of similar incidents. The NerveGear, SAO's VR device, was recalled and destroyed, but with the launch of its successor, the AmuSphere, combined with release of the license-free development support package the "Seed", the popularity of VR games saw a sudden resurgence.


text: The story follows Karen Kohiruimaki, a university student with a complex about her abnormal height. She begins playing a VR game called "Gun Gale Online" after it gives her the short, cute avatar that she has always wanted.


text: Dengeki Bunko announced on September 18, 2014, that Keiichi Sigsawa would be writing a light novel based on Reki Kawahara's "Sword Art Online" light novel series. The series is supervised by Kawahara and illustrated by Kouhaku Kuroboshi, and ASCII Media Works published the first novel under the Dengeki imprint on December 10, 2014. During their panel at Anime NYC on November 18, 2017, Yen Press announced that they had licensed the series.


text: Tadadi Tamori launched a manga adaptation in ASCII Media Works "seinen" manga magazine "Dengeki Maoh" on October 27, 2015. During their panel at Sakura-Con on April 15, 2017, Yen Press announced that they had licensed the series in North America.


text: An anime television series adaptation was announced at the Dengeki Bunko Fall Festival 2017 event on October 1, 2017. The series is directed by Masayuki Sakoi, written by Yōsuke Kuroda, produced by Egg Firm and animated by studio 3Hz, with character designs by Yoshio Kosakai. The opening theme song is by Eir Aoi and the ending theme song is "To see the future" by Llenn (Tomori Kusunoki).


text: The series aired in Japan between April 8 and June 30, 2018, on Tokyo MX, BS11, Tochigi TV, Gunma TV, MBS and TV Aichi. The series was released on 6 home video sets with 2 episodes each, for a total of 12 episodes. Aniplex of America has licensed the series and simulcast the series on Crunchyroll and Hulu. Anime Limited announced that they had acquired the series for release in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Madman Entertainment acquired the series for release in Australia and New Zealand, and simulcasted the series on AnimeLab.


text: To promote the anime, Tokyo Marui made a limited edition FN P90 submachine gun with a pink finish as part of a collaboration with Keiichi Sigsawa and Kōji Akimoto, the latter who worked on the air gun's color. The pink P90 was raffled to the public through a raffle in a collaboration with Pizza Hut Japan, in which two of them were awarded to contestants.


text: Llenn, Pitohui, M, and Fukaziroh made their video game debut in "" as a free update. They later have a major role in the DLC episode "Dissonance of the Nexus", which is also the first time they interact with the main series characters.


text: During the first half of 2015, the series was the 11th best-selling light novel series, with its first and second volumes ranking at 8th and 17th place, respectively. The 4th volume also managed to be the 25th best-selling novel during the first half of 2016. As of May 2018, the series had 1 million copies in print.


title: Gypsy horse

text: The Gypsy Cob, also known as the Traditional Gypsy Cob, Irish Cob, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Vanner, or Tinker Horse is a type or breed of domestic horse from the islands Great Britain and Ireland. It is a small, solidly-built horse of cob conformation and is often, but not always, piebald or skewbald; it is particularly associated with Irish Travellers and English Romanichal Travellers of Ireland and Great Britain. There was no stud-book or breed registry for horses of this type until 1996, but as breeders developed standards and recorded pedigrees, there are now organizations that register qualifying horses..


title: Gypsy horse

text: From about 1850, travelling people in the British Isles began to use a distinct type of horse to pull their vardos, the caravans in which they had just begun to live and travel. The color and look of the breed were refined in the years after the Second World War. Horses of this type were first exported to the United States in 1996.


title: Gypsy horse

text: The Gypsy horse is usually, but not always, piebald. It may also be skewbald or any solid colour; a solid-coloured horse with white splashing on the underbelly is called "blagdon" or "splashed". There is no coat colour requirement in the breed standard of the Irish Cob Society, Gypsy Cob Register, Gypsy Vanner Horse Society, Gypsy Horse Registry of America, or Australasian Gypsy Horse Society. Since the horse originates in the British Isles, British colour names may be used in registration in the United States.


title: Gypsy horse

text: There are many breed societies for the Gypsy horse, with variations in their respective breed standards. The range of desired heights is generally from in the United States and Australasia, but in Ireland and continental Europe, the desired height limit goes up to for some types and they permit both lighter-boned as well as larger horses than typically desired by the American organisations. Some stud-books have different categories: The Gypsy Horse Registry of America has two height classifications: Section A for purebred horses under and Section B for purebred horses and over. Its Section C is for Gypsy Crossbred horses. The Netherlands stud-book for Gypsy horses, the Nederlands Stamboek voor Tinkers, identified there as the "Tinker horse," classifies horses into three groups: "cob," "vanner," and "grai," based on height in metres and degree of refinement. The cob type is approximately , and the vanner . The more refined "grai" may be of any size but is typically within the 14.3- to 16.2-hand range.


title: Gypsy horse

text: Feathering, long hair on the legs, is considered a "characteristic and decorative feature of the Irish Cob", but is not a requirement for registration.


title: Gypsy horse

text: A Gypsy Horse's facial profile should be straight, neither overly dished nor roman nosed. A "sweet" head, more refined than that of most draught horses, is desired. The GHA's breed standard states that the head "may" be "sweet", "a small, tidy pony type head", meaning without coarseness and in proportion with the body, but the AGHS calls unequivocally for a sweet head, "more refined than a Shire might have . . . with broad forehead, generous jaw, square muzzle, and even bite". According to GVHS, the "forehead must be flat and broad . . . with [t]he frontal facial bone . . . flat to slightly convex".


title: Gypsy horse

text: The neck is strong, muscular, and of medium length "with a throat latch slightly deeper than lighter breeds". The chest should be broad, deep, and well muscled. Withers are "well rounded, not high and fine, i.e., hardly noticeable". Most standards call for a "well-sloped" shoulder But the GVHS's standard is more precise, specifying a shoulder angle ranging from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. The back is to be short coupled with well sprung ribs and a deep heart girth. The length of line of the belly should be twice that of the topline of the back and the horse should not appear 'wasp waisted'. The Dutch breed standard for vanner and cob types requires a strong, well-muscled build with abundant feathering, similar to that of other associations. The "grai" is classified as a lighter and more refined riding type.


title: Gypsy horse

text: Strong hindquarters define the breed as a small draught horse, "designed for strength and power, but with class, presence and style." They are sometimes described as having an "apple butt" as the croup is well rounded and "very generous, smooth and broad". Poorly-muscled hindquarters or a too-sloping rump are unacceptable. The line measuring the length of the hip should also be horizontal; if the tailhead falls below the horizontal line intersecting the point of the hip, the horse's "hip/croup will be approaching too steep an angle for the Gypsy Vanner".


title: Gypsy horse

text: Bone in the legs should be heavy, clean, and flat. GVHS's standard calls for a length of forearm to cannon ratio of 55% to 45%. The front legs should be clean and flat in joints as well as bone; front pasterns should slope at the same angle as the shoulder and should not be short. A line drawn from the point of the buttock should touch the back of the hock, run "parallel" to the cannon bone, and touch the ground directly behind "the center of the heel". Pastern and hoof angles of the hindlegs are more vertical than the forelegs, usually over 50 degrees. Hooves have strong walls and a well shaped frog, round and with wide heels.


title: Gypsy horse

text: The hind legs of the Gypsy Horse should display proper angulation for a pulling horse, although not to the degree found in larger feathered draught breeds such as the modern Shire and Clydesdale. Unlike the equine conformational flaw of cow-hockedness, where only the lower leg is turned outward, a Gypsy Horse's entire hind leg is set so as to angle outward. As a result, when the hind legs of a horse set up squarely are viewed from the rear, their cannon bones appear parallel.


title: Gypsy horse

text: The Gypsy horse has distinct gaits. According to GHA's standard, "The stride should be correct, supple, and powerful. Showing good impulsion from behind, demonstrating powerful drive. Flowing, effortless in appearance". The horse's movement should be "natural, not artificial . . . . Some have higher knee action than others, it's[sic] way of going can vary from short and economical to longer, reaching strides." GHRA's standard requires "[a] steady forward walk with impulsion. Ground covering trot with a slight flick of feather at the point of extension."


title: Gypsy horse

text: The Gypsy horse should be a "strong, kind, (very) intelligent partner that works willingly and harmoniously with its handler. They are also described as mannerly and manageable, eager to please, confident, courageous, alert, and loyal with a genuine sociable outlook. The Gypsy Horse is renowned for its gentle, tractable nature and sensible disposition."


title: Gypsy horse

text: The Gypsy Horse is prone to diseases common to feathered draught horses. The most serious of these is chronic progressive lymphedema. This condition may have a genetic component, as is a similar condition in humans. However, studies to date have not identified a causative gene. Of less concern is pastern dermatitis ("greasy heels"). The moist environment under the feathering is an ideal environment for the combination of fungus and mites which are believed to cause it.


title: Gypsy horse

text: The Gypsy Horse was bred by the Romanichal Travellers of Great Britain to pull the Vardoes in which they lived and travelled. Romanichal Travellers had arrived in the British Isles by 1500 AD, but they did not begin to live in vardoes until around 1850. Prior to that, they travelled in tilted carts or afoot and slept either under or in these carts or in small tents. The peak usage of the Gypsy caravan occurred in the latter part of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th.


title: Gypsy horse

text: Some aspects of training, management, and characteristics of a horse used to pull a Vardo are unique. For example, the horse is trained not to stop until it reaches the top of a hill; otherwise it may not be able to get started again. Training begins at a very early age with the young horse tied "with a short rope from the head to the trace-ring on the collar of the shaft-horse", and led along on the off side. An old hat is sometimes placed on a fearful horse's head so as to keep him from seeing back over the top of his blinkers at the wagon looming at his back. A horse used to pull a vardo which was a permanent home was usually in very good condition due to a combination of exercise, grazing a variety of greens in the hedgerows, and good quality care; the horse was considered part of the family. Since the family's children lived in close proximity to the horse, one having "an unreliable temper could not be tolerated".


title: Gypsy horse

text: The Gypsy Horse was also used to pull the "tradesman's cart . . . used in conjunction with the caravan as a runabout and work vehicle and whilst on a journey". This is also known as a flatbed or a trolley, and examples appear in the annual London Harness Horse Parade.