title: Arcee

text: In "Twilight's Last Gleaming" part 1, Skyblast lead the Autobots Arcee, Armorhide, Elita One, Longarm, and Strongarm who in resisting the Decepticons who had conquered Earth. In part 3 Starscream and Scorponok attack the Autobots Arcee, , Elita One, Longarm, Skyblast, and Strongarm on the moon. The Autobots flee to Earth, which is exactly what Starscream hoped they'd do. In part 4 Ratchet and Ironhide continued fighting Bonecrusher in Savannah, but did not stand much of a chance until they were joined by Arcee, Armoride, and Longarm, arriving from the moon. In this story, Arcee resembles a pink version of her scout class toy in robot mode, but assumes a Cybertronian "protoform entry mode" for her vehicle mode. Arcee appeared in issue #17 of the Titan Transformers Magazine, in a story called "Return to Cybertron Part 1". In this story, she is among the Autobots that go to Cybertron. Arcee would return in issue #22 of the Titan Transformers Magazine series in a story called "The Decepticon who Haunted Himself."


title: Arcee

text: According to her extended biography from the Target store exclusive Robo-Vision website, Arcee was only on Earth for a short time before her stealth skills were needed elsewhere. Optimus Prime sent her to another planet to stop Decepticon research on a star breaking weapon.


title: Arcee

text: In "Revenge of the Fallen", Arcee was accompanied by two similar Transformers, Chromia and Elita One, sharing similar robot and vehicle forms, as well as the same holographic driver. They chased the Decepticon Sideways in an alley in Shanghai, but lost track of him. They were later present when the Autobots faced off with the Decepticons in Egypt, and were sent with Ironhide as an advance team to recover Sam. Upon finding Sam and Mikaela, several Decepticons attacked, and Arcee and Elita One were shot and killed while Chromia was last seen taking cover.


title: Arcee

text: In "Age of Extinction", a card with her picture on it was seen with a Red 'X' through it, confirming her death.


title: Arcee

text: In "Bumblebee", Arcee makes a small talking cameo at the beginning of the film with her original G1 appearance. It is strongly implied that she survived the onslaught of Cybertron and made it to Earth at the end of the film.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee is a female Autobot who seems to be inspired by her "Generation 1" counterpart and Susan Blu reprises the role. She was originally a teacher before the war began, her full name being Teaching Unit RC-687040.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee makes an appearance in the ""Transformers Animated"" episode "Thrill of the Hunt". During several flashback sequences, Ratchet recalls his first encounter with the rogue bounty hunter Lockdown during the Great War thousands of years earlier. Still a young field medic at that time, Ratchet comes across Arcee, who has been injured in the fighting. He knocks her out to repair her left leg, but then they are both ambushed by Lockdown. After being taken to his hideout, Lockdown divulges that Arcee is carrying vital information Megatron would be interested in, intent to extract it for his employer. After Lockdown forcibly removes Ratchet's medical-use electro-magnetic pulse generator from his left arm as a personal trophy, Arcee manages to sneak it back to Ratchet. She then bravely tells Ratchet to use the EMP device on her to erase her data core so that Lockdown will not be able to retrieve the data from her. After protesting that doing so would also completely erase her entire life and memory, Ratchet is suddenly forced to do so in order to protect them both from Lockdown. After escaping, Arcee's memory has, as expected, been completely erased, including all knowledge of herself.


title: Arcee

text: It was revealed in "Transwarped" that due to a special fail-safe program after being placed in stasis, Arcee uploads the data into Ratchet, allowing him to continue her mission of activating Omega Supreme.


title: Arcee

text: Long after the Great War has ended, a now-older Ratchet honors her by keeping the painful memory of her intact in his own mind. However, by the events of "This is Why I Hate Machines", when Megatron arrives to Cybertron in Omega Supreme, the exposed Shockwave begins setting up a scheme to track down Arcee and acquire the access code to Omega Supreme from her. His plans are delayed when Ratchet and Captain Fanzone arrive on Cybertron and made an attempt protect to Arcee before Shockwave escapes with her. However, it turned out her memory may not be as lost as previously believed. Though at first only her pre-war memories were available, Shockwave manages to recover her war-time ones before forcefully extracting the activation codes when she refused to give them willingly. This action resulted with Arcee relapsing until Sari's new-found ability allows Ratchet to use his EMP generator to restore Arcee's memories before she uses her codes to regain control of Omega Supreme. In the aftermath of the final battle on Earth, Arcee returns home to Cyberton with the Autobots, Omega Supreme, and the captured Megatron.


title: Arcee

text: A mirror-universe version of Arcee appeared in the "Transformers: Timelines" fiction. She is one of the evil Autobots. She is described as barely sane. She wields a neutronic crossbow with deadly accuracy.


title: Arcee

text: This version of Arcee first appeared in the fiction "Dungeons & Dinobots", a text based story from Fun Publications. She was among the Autobots who attacked the Arch-Ayr fuel dump. She was attacked by the laughter inducing Decepticon Dirge as she fired on Gutcruncher.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee is one of the main group of Autobots in the 2010 computer animated series "". She transforms into a blue motorcycle, inspired by her appearance in the live film series, but with a more humanoid robot form. As a motorcycle she is capable of producing a humanoid female hologram driver who she refers to as "Sadie" to help disguise her identity. She can form bladed weapons or blasters from her hands. Arcee is the most focused character in the series, and arguably the show's main protagonist for much of the first and second seasons. Arcee played a smaller role in the third season, but had an episode that focused on her, "Plus One", where she started a potential relationship with Wheeljack, convincing him to stay with the Autobots. She is the only character to have actual flashbacks and complete in-depth origin episodes, whereas characters such as Optimus Prime and Smokescreen have images of an event while they narrate the story. Arcee is also the only character to have two "arch-enemies" Starscream and Airachnid, creating a three-way rivalry, holding a grudge against the two for killing her former partners Cliffjumper and Tailgate respectively. She is also the only character who appeared in every single episode of the series until "Triangulation" (in which she was only mentioned) in the middle of the second season. After that she was absent from only three more episodes: "Triage", "Chain of Command", and "Thirst" (a Decepticon focused episode that featured no Autobots). Coincidentally, Arcee's human partner Jack, is arguably the most focused human of the series, having had his own background focused on more in-depth unlike most other human characters.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee appears as an unlockable character in the 2010 video game "" and on a poster in its 2012 sequel "". Arcee appears as a playable character in the 2012 video game "". Arcee, as the Angry Birds Stella transformed, is an unlockable character in Angry Birds Transformers.


title: Arcee

text: Before the war, Arcee had been spying in Kaon, and sometime during it she had been rescued by Cliffjumper. When Optimus ordered the Autobots to Earth, her ship had been destroyed, and she was willing to wait as she detected the Decepticons had returned to Cybertron and they were planning something "big". There, she entered a base and annihilated the Vehicons there, inadvertently returning Cliffjumper's favor. She hacked into the Decepticons's communications signal there, and found their weapons lab in Kaon. Arcee found Cliffjumper a brash soldier inappropriate for her stealthy mission, but he convinced her Kaon was too dangerous and that she could use his ship to go to Earth.


title: Arcee

text: The duo entered the city through the maintenance tunnels Arcee had once explored, and she found a secret staircase by activating an Autobot symbol on the wall. There they discovered Starscream had rebuilt a space bridge to travel to Earth. Concerned by the repercussions of the Decepticons's discovery of how to build space bridges, Arcee wanted to destroy it, but Cliffjumper convinced her it was their way off Cybertron. Distracting Starscream with a ruse, Arcee activated the space bridge and overloaded its systems, jumping through it with him before it blew up.


title: Arcee

text: Landing on Earth, the duo scanned their alternate modes and traveled to find a population center where they could build a scanner and find Optimus. Starscream attacked, having also jumped through the space bridge, blasting Arcee's arm off. Cliffjumper fought him and tried to get Arcee to safety, but she refused, telling him to leave her and find Optimus. Optimus and Bumblebee appeared, fending off Starscream and Breakdown. Optimus carried Arcee through a GroundBridge to base, where Ratchet reattached her arm.


title: Arcee

text: Following Optimus's sacrifice, Arcee, Bumblebee and Bulkhead encountered Sludge in a tunnel. They emerged on the surface in time to help Grimlock and the other Dinobots fight a squad of Forged. Arcee was shocked to hear they'd been created by Shockwave. After dealing with that threat, Arcee starting filling the Dinobots in on recent events, only for them to be promptly attacked by a new Predacon. The Autobots split into groups to head to Kaon, with Arcee and Swoop taking one group of survivors. Swoop drew off the Predacon when it attacked, allowing Arcee and the other to reach Kaon while the Predacon was dealt with. There, Arcee explained that the Dinobots would always be welcome in the Autobot ranks. Grimlock, however, said the Dinobots would be unable to help with the reconstruction of Kaon, since they'd be building a new home for the survivors.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee took part in the testing of Ratchet's newly developed Safe training room, though she was amused by the medic's interest in making things explode. After Bulkhead broke through a wall, Arcee alerted the others to the rather large nuclear missile he'd accidentally uncovered and activated. A Vehicon scouting party showed up looking for the source of the energy signature the bomb was giving off, so Optimus, Arcee and Bumblebee went out to trash them. The trio returned to base a short time later to find Fowler had arrived to deal with the bomb. Optimus took the other Autobots, including Arcee, on a trip to Valley of Fire State Park.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee roundly mocked Bulkhead as he attempted to decorate a Christmas tree. Unfortunately for her, after Fowler reported that the Decepticons had taken over a nuclear-powered ship, she found herself left at base with Bulkhead. The kids suggested she and Bulkhead try to find something they both liked, but progress was slow until they discovered their mutual love of ice skating. They subsequently turned the base into an ice rink and skated around it until the other Autobots came back.


title: Arcee

text: She and Jack scouted out Franklin High School when schools in the region began unexpectedly exploding. It paid off when MECH turned up, however while Arcee was on the comm to Optimus, Jack sneaked inside the school. Arcee crashed inside to rescue him from MECH, though he insisted on following the baddies up to the roof. Silas got away anyway, and Arcee had to get Jack off the burning building. After the President of the United States was kidnapped, the Autobots traced the culprit, Starscream, to the Grand Canyon. Bumblebee and Arcee teamed up to take out the cannons manned by Vehicons that Starscream had brought along.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee and Bulkhead headed to Zhejiang Province, China after the Autobots lost contact with Optimus Prime. They found Knock Out and a bunch of Vehicons feeding Optimus's body into a crusher but were overcome by the Decepticons before they could rescue him. Luckily Optimus came to his senses in time. After Miko was kidnapped by MECH agent Novo, Arcee joined the hunt to find her.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee was bemused by Jack's demonstration of bobbing for apples. She was on the team which visited the Deep Driller oil platform and encountered General Madison and his men. After ending up underneath Bulkhead, she managed to trick two of the soldiers in robotic battle suits into shooting each other. When Bulkhead went missing, Arcee searched in vain until Miko managed to work out he was on the Decepticon ship. Arcee was subsequently part of the mission to rescue their friend. Arcee took part in a battle against the Decepticons in The Wave.


title: Arcee

text: Following a TV studio takeover by Knock Out and Breakdown, Arcee came along on the mission as backup. She took to the shadows, and once Optimus had rescued the other hostages, Arcee rescued Chuck Chuckles and took down the two Decepticons herself.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee occasionally takes time out from defending the universe and protecting the planet Earth in disguise to answer fan mail. In every issue, Arcee gets her own segment (sometimes with Megatron) to comment on the readers' fan mail and/or fan-art they sent them.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee tracked Ripclaw to the Canadian Rockies. Rather than attack directly, she leaked the coordinates to the Decepticons in the hope they would deal with the problem.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee was a regularly appearing character in the "Transformers: Prime" animated series. Arcee was a participant in the Great War and originally was partnered with Tailgate. During one mission, she talked to Tailgate on comm before being captured by Airachnid for interrogation. Arcee was tied up and refused to talk. To try to make her talk, Airachnid captured Tailgate and threatened to kill him. When she still didn't talk, Airachnid slaughtered him before her very eyes. After Tailgate was killed, Arcee was saved by Bumblebee and Cliffjumper. She began working alone and distancing herself from others to cope with her grief.


title: Arcee

text: Arcee was captured by Starscream and taken captive alongside fellow Autobot Cliffjumper. She claimed to have never met him before and when Starscream said he would kill Cliffjumper if she did not cooperate, Arcee showed little to no concern about him. Starscream took the two Autobots to Shockwave, who was on Cybertron. Shockwave used a cortical psychic patch to get the Intel, but the two managed to escape before he could kill them. They raced into a Space Bridge and teamed up with Optimus Prime. Cliffjumper and Arcee became partners at this time.


title: Arcee

text: Although she doesn't appeared in the series, a picture of her shown and was along with the list of Autobots who were backlisted by the Decepticons disguised as the new High Council for being a supporter of Optimus Prime following the restoration of Cybertron after the Great War. In her picture, she resembles her G1 Counterpart but is still colored blue.


title: Governor of Michigan

text: The governor of Michigan is the head of state, head of government, and chief executive of the U.S. state of Michigan. The current governor is Gretchen Whitmer, a member of the Democratic Party, who was inaugurated on January 1, 2019, as the state's 49th governor. She was re-elected to serve a second term in 2022. The governor is elected to a 4-year term and is limited to two terms.


title: Governor of Michigan

text: Governors of Michigan, as well as their lieutenant governors, must be United States citizens who have been qualified electors in Michigan for the four years preceding election and must be at least 30 years of age. A constitutional amendment adopted at the 2010 general election provides that a person is ineligible for any elected office, including governor and lieutenant governor, if convicted of a felony involving dishonesty, deceit, fraud, or a breach of the public trust, and if the conviction were related to the person's official capacity while holding any elective office or position of employment in local, state, or federal government.


title: Governor of Michigan

text: From statehood until the election of 1966, governors were elected to two-year terms. Elections are held in November, and the governor assumes office the following January, except in the case of death or resignation. From statehood until 1851, elections were held in odd-numbered years. A new state constitution was drafted in 1850 and took effect in 1851. As part of the process bringing the constitution into effect, there was a single one-year term of governor in 1851. Thereafter elections were held in even years.


title: Governor of Michigan

text: The constitution adopted in 1963 changed the governor's term to four years, starting in 1967. Since then, gubernatorial elections have been offset by two years between the U.S. presidential elections (e.g., presidential elections were in 2008 and 2012, while gubernatorial elections in that time period were in 2010 and 2014). Gubernatorial elections are held concurrently with state Senate elections. The winner of the gubernatorial election takes office at noon on January 1 of the year following the election.


title: Governor of Michigan

text: In 1992, an amendment to the Michigan constitution imposed a lifetime term limit of two four-year terms for the office of governor. Before this, governors were not limited as to how many terms they could serve; John Engler, the governor at the time, served three terms as his first term occurred before the restriction. Engler was reelected in 1994 and 1998 before being term limited in 2002.


title: Governor of Michigan

text: The governor appoints the members of the governing boards of 10 of the state's 13 public universities and department commissions.


title: Governor of Michigan

text: Forty-seven people have been governor of the state over forty-nine distinct periods, with two, John S. Barry and Frank Fitzgerald, serving non-consecutive terms. Before statehood, there were five governors of the Michigan Territory. Stevens T. Mason, Michigan's first governor, also served as a territorial governor. He was elected governor at age 23 as a member of the Democratic Party in 1835 and served until 1840. Mason was the youngest state governor in United States history.


title: Governor of Michigan

text: Jennifer Granholm became the first female governor of Michigan on January 1, 2003, when she succeeded Engler; she served for 8 years, until January 1, 2011.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Southern Schleswig, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek, Curonia, the Ukrainian state of the Cossack Hetmanate and in Cumberland County in the British Colony of New South Wales. It is still used in other places, including in Australia (in South Australia and the Northern Territory).


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Other terms for the hundred in English and other languages include "wapentake", "herred" (Danish and Bokmål Norwegian), "herad" (Nynorsk Norwegian), "hérað" (Icelandic), "härad" or "hundare" (Swedish), "Harde" (German), "hiird" (North Frisian), "satakunta" or "kihlakunta" (Finnish), "kihelkond" (Estonian), "kiligunda" (Livonian), "cantref" (Welsh) and "sotnia" (Slavic).


title: Hundred (county division)

text: In Ireland, a similar subdivision of counties is referred to as a barony, and a hundred is a subdivision of a particularly large townland (most townlands are not divided into hundreds).


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The origin of the division of counties into hundreds is described by the "Oxford English Dictionary" ("OED") as "exceedingly obscure". It may once have referred to an area of 100 hides. (In the early Anglo-Saxon period a hide was the amount of land farmed by and required to support a peasant family, but by the eleventh century in many areas it supported four families.) Alternatively the hundred may have been an area originally settled by one "hundred" men at arms, or the area liable to provide one "hundred" men under arms. (Note that in earlier times the number term "hundred" can itself be unclear, meaning the "short" hundred (100) or in some contexts the long hundred of 120.)


title: Hundred (county division)

text: There was an equivalent traditional Germanic system. In Old High German a "huntari" is a division of a "gau"; but the "OED" believes that the link between the two is not established.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: From the 11th century in England, and to a lesser extent from the 16th century in Wales, and until the middle of the 19th century, the annual assemblies had varying degrees of power at a local level in the feudal system. Of chief importance was their more regular use for taxation, and six centuries of taxation returns for the divisions survive to this day.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Groupings of divisions, small shires, were used to define parliamentary constituencies from 1832 to 1885. On the redistribution of seats in 1885 a different county subdivision, the petty sessional division, was used. Hundreds were also used to administer the first four national censuses from 1801 to 1841.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The system of county divisions was not as stable as the system of counties being established at the time, and lists frequently differ on how many hundreds a county had. In many parts of the country, the Domesday Book contained a radically different set of divisions from that which later became established. The numbers of divisions in each county varied widely. Leicestershire had six (up from four at Domesday), whereas Devon, nearly three times the size, had 32.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: By the end of the 19th century, several single-purpose subdivisions of counties, such as poor law unions, sanitary districts, and highway districts, had sprung up, which, together with the introduction of urban districts and rural districts in 1894, mostly replaced the role of the parishes, and to a lesser extent the less extensive role of hundreds. The division names gave their name to multiple modern local government districts.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: In south and western England, a hundred was the division of a shire for military and judicial purposes under the common law, which could have varying extent of common feudal ownership, from complete suzerainty to minor royal or ecclesiastical prerogatives and rights of ownership. Until the introduction of districts by the Local Government Act 1894, hundreds were the only widely used assessment unit intermediate in size between the parish, with its various administrative functions, and the county, with its formal, ceremonial functions.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The term "hundred" is first recorded in the laws of Edmund I (939–46) as a measure of land and the area served by a hundred court. In the Midlands, they often covered an area of about 100 hides, but this did not apply in the south; this may suggest that it was an ancient West Saxon measure that was applied rigidly when Mercia became part of the newly established English kingdom in the 10th century. The "Hundred Ordinance", which dates to the middle of the century, provided that the court was to meet monthly, and thieves were to be pursued by all the leading men of the district.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: During Norman times, the hundred would pay geld based on the number of hides. To assess how much everyone had to pay, a clerk and a knight were sent by the king to each county; they sat with the shire-reeve (or sheriff), of the county and a select group of local knights. There would be two knights from each hundred. After it was determined what geld had to be paid, the bailiff and knights of the hundred were responsible for getting the money to the sheriff, and the sheriff for getting it to the Exchequer.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Above the hundred was the shire, under the control of a sheriff. Hundred boundaries were independent of both parish and county boundaries, although often aligned, meaning that a hundred could be split between counties, or a parish could be split between hundreds. Exceptionally, in the counties of Kent and Sussex, there was a sub-division intermediate in size between the hundred and the shire: several hundreds were grouped together to form lathes in Kent and rapes in Sussex. At the time of the Norman conquest of England, Kent was divided into seven lathes and Sussex into four rapes.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Over time, the principal functions of the hundred became the administration of law and the keeping of the peace. By the 12th century, the hundred court was held twelve times a year. This was later increased to fortnightly, although an ordinance of 1234 reduced the frequency to once every three weeks. In some hundreds, courts were held at a fixed place; while in others, courts moved with each sitting to a different location. The main duty of the hundred court was the maintenance of the frankpledge system. The court was formed of twelve freeholders, or freemen. According to a 13th-century statute, freeholders did not have to attend their lord's manorial courts, thus any suits involving them would be heard in a hundred court.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: For especially serious crimes, the hundred was under the jurisdiction of the Crown; the chief magistrate was a sheriff, and his circuit was called the sheriff's tourn. However, many hundreds came into private hands, with the lordship of the hundred being attached to the principal manor of the area and becoming hereditary. Helen Cam estimated that even before the Conquest, over 130 hundreds were in private hands; while an inquest of 1316 found that by that date 388 of 628 named hundreds were held, not by the Crown, but by its subjects. Where a hundred was under a lord, a steward, acting as a judge and the chief official of the lord of the manor, was appointed in place of a sheriff.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The importance of the hundred courts declined from the 17th century, and most of their powers were extinguished with the establishment of county courts in 1867. The remaining duty of the inhabitants of a hundred to make good damages caused by riot was ended by the Riot (Damages) Act 1886, when the cost was transferred to the county police rate. The jurisdiction of hundred courts was curtailed by the Administration of Justice Act 1977.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The term ward is a corresponding county division in the four northern counties of Cumberland, Durham, Northumberland and Westmorland.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The steward of the Chiltern Hundreds is notable as a legal fiction, owing to a quirk of British Parliamentary law. A Crown Steward was appointed to maintain law and order in the area, but these duties ceased to be performed in the 16th century, and the holder ceased to gain any benefits during the 17th century. The position has since been used as a procedural device to allow resignation from the British House of Commons as a (formerly) remunerated office of the Crown.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: A wapentake was the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon hundred in the northern Danelaw. In the Domesday Book, the term is used instead of hundreds in Yorkshire, the Five Boroughs of Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford, and also sometimes in Northamptonshire. The laws in wapentakes were similar to those in hundreds with minor variations. According to the first-century historian Tacitus, in Scandinavia the wapentake referred to a vote passed at an assembly by the brandishing of weapons. In some counties, such as Leicestershire, the wapentakes recorded at the time of Domesday Book later evolved into hundreds. In others, such as Lincolnshire, the term remained in use.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Although no longer part of local government, there is some correspondence between the rural deanery and the former wapentake or hundred; especially in the East Midlands, the Buckingham Archdeaconry and the York Diocese.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: In Wales an ancient Celtic system of division called "cantrefi" (a hundred farmsteads; singular "cantref") had existed for centuries and was of particular importance in the administration of the Welsh law. The antiquity of the "cantrefi" is demonstrated by the fact that they often mark the boundary between dialects. Some were originally kingdoms in their own right; others may have been artificial units created later. With the coming of Christianity, the "llan" (similar to the parish) based Celtic churches often took the borders of the older cantrefi, and the same happened when Norman 'hundreds' were enforced on the people of Wales.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Each "cantref" had its own court, which was an assembly of the "uchelwyr", the main landowners of the "cantref". This would be presided over by the king if he happened to be present, or if he was not present, by his representative. Apart from the judges there would be a clerk, an usher and sometimes two professional pleaders. The "cantref" court dealt with crimes, the determination of boundaries, and inheritance.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The term " ("hundred") was used in Svealand and present-day Finland. The name is assumed to mean an area that should organise 100 men to crew four rowed war boats, which each had 12 pairs of oars and a commander.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Eventually, that division was superseded by introducing the "härad" or "Herred", which was the term in the rest of the Nordic countries. This word was either derived from Proto-Norse *"harja-raiðō" (warband) or Proto-Germanic *"harja-raiða" (war equipment, cf. "wapentake)". Similar to "skipreide", a part of the coast where the inhabitants were responsible for equipping and manning a war ship.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Hundreds were not organized in Norrland, the northern sparsely populated part of Sweden. In Sweden, a countryside ' was typically divided in a few "socken" units (parish), where the ecclesiastical and worldly administrative units often coincided. This began losing its basic significance through the municipal reform of 1862. A ' was originally a subdivision of a ' (province), but since the government reform of 1634, ' ("county") took over all administrative roles of the province. A ' functioned also as electoral district for one peasant representative during the Riksdag of the Estates (Swedish parliament 1436–1866). The ' (hundred court) was the court of first instance in the countryside, abolished in 1970 and superseded by " (modern district courts).


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Today, the hundreds serve no administrative role in Sweden, although some judicial district courts still bear the name (e.g. ) and the hundreds are occasionally used in expressions, e.g. " (district of seven hundreds).


title: Hundred (county division)

text: It is not entirely clear when hundreds were organised in the western part of Finland. The name of the province of Satakunta, roughly meaning "hundred" ( meaning "one hundred" in Finnish), hints at influences from the times before the Northern Crusades, Christianization, and incorporation into Sweden.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: As ', hundreds remained the fundamental administrative division for the state authorities until 2009. Each was subordinated to a ' (province/county) and had its own police department, district court and prosecutors. Typically, cities would comprise an urban ' by themselves, but several rural municipalities would belong to a rural '. In a rural hundred the lensmann (chief of local state authorities) was called "nimismies" ("appointed man"), or archaically "vallesmanni" (from Swedish). In the Swedish era (up to 1809), his main responsibilities were maintenance of stagecoach stations and coaching inns, supplying traveling government personnel with food and lodging, transport of criminal prisoners, police responsibilities, arranging district court proceedings ("tingsrätt"), collection of taxes, and sometimes arranging hunts to cull the wolf and bear population. Following the abolition of the provinces as an administrative unit in 2009, the territory for each authority could be demarcated separately, i.e. police districts need not equal court districts in number. The title "härad" survives in the honorary title of "herastuomari" (Finnish) or "häradsdomare" (Swedish), which can be given to lay judges after 8–10 years of service.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The term "herred" or "herad" was used in Norway between 1863 and 1992 for rural municipalities, besides the term kommune (heradskommune). Today, only four municipalities in western Norway call themselves "herad", as Ulvik and Kvam. Some Norwegian districts have the word "herad" in their name, of historical reasons - among them Krødsherad and Heradsbygd in eastern Norway.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: In 17th and 18th century, "sotnia" was an administrative-territorial, judicial, and military unit of a ""polk"" (Regiment) in the Hetmanate and Sloboda Ukraine. The Encyclopedia of Ukraine translates the term as "company".


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Counties in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were divided into hundreds in the 17th century, following the English practice familiar to the colonists. They survive in Delaware (see List of hundreds of Delaware), and were used as tax reporting and voting districts until the 1960s, but now serve no administrative role: their only official legal use is in real estate title descriptions.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The hundred was also used as a division of the county in Maryland. Carroll County, Maryland was formed in 1836 by taking the following hundreds from Baltimore County: North Hundred, Pipe Creek Hundred, Delaware Upper Hundred, Delaware Lower Hundred; and from Frederick County: Pipe Creek Hundred, Westminster Hundred, Unity Hundred, Burnt House Hundred, Piney Creek Hundred, and Taneytown Hundred. Maryland's Somerset County, which was established in 1666, was initially divided into six hundreds: Mattapony, Pocomoke, Boquetenorton, Wicomico, and Baltimore Hundreds; later subdivisions of the hundreds added five more: Pitts Creek, Acquango, Queponco, Buckingham, and Worcester Hundreds.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The original borders of Talbot County (founded at some point prior to February 12, 1661) contained nine hundreds: Treadhaven Hundred, Bolenbroke Hundred, Mill Hundred, Tuckahoe Hundred, Worrell Hundred, Bay Hundred, Island Hundred, Lower Kent Island Hundred, Chester Hundred. In 1669 Chester Hundred was given to Kent County. In 1707 Queen Anne's County was created from the northern parts of Talbot County, reducing the latter to seven hundreds (Lower Kent Island Hundred becoming a part of the former). Of these, only Bay Hundred legally remains in existence, as a District 5 in Talbot County. The geographic region, which includes several unincorporated communities and part of present-day Saint Michaels, continues to be known by the name Bay Hundred, with state and local governments using the name in ways ranging from water trail guides to community pools, while local newspapers regularly use the name in reporting news.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Following American independence, the term "hundred" fell out of favour and was replaced by "election district". However, the names of the old hundreds continue to show up in deeds for another 50 years.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: Some plantations in early colonial Virginia used the term hundred in their names, such as Martin's Hundred, Flowerdew Hundred, and West and Shirley Hundred. Bermuda Hundred was the first incorporated town in the English colony of Virginia. It was founded by Sir Thomas Dale in 1613, six years after Jamestown.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: While debating what became the Land Ordinance of 1785, Thomas Jefferson's committee wanted to divide the public lands in the west into "hundreds of ten geographical miles square, each mile containing 6086 and 4-10ths of a foot". The legislation instead introduced the six-mile square township of the Public Land Survey System.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: In South Australia, land titles record in which hundred a parcel of land is located. Similar to the notion of the South Australian counties listed on the system of titles, hundreds are not generally used when referring to a district and are little known by the general population, except when transferring land title. When the land in the region of the present Darwin, in the Northern Territory, was first surveyed, the territory was administered by South Australia, and the surveyed land was divided up into hundreds.


title: Hundred (county division)

text: The Cumberland County (Sydney) was also allocated hundreds in the nineteenth century, although these were later repealed. A hundred is traditionally one hundred square miles or , although this is often not exact as boundaries often follow local topography.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, formerly Baroda College, is a public university in the city of Vadodara, in Gujarat state, India. Originally established as a college in 1881, it became a university in 1949 after the independence of the country. It was later renamed after its benefactor Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the former ruler of Baroda State.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The university offers undergraduate, post-graduate, and doctoral programs. It houses 89 departments spread over 6 campuses (2 rural and 4 urban) covering 275 acres of land.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The university has its origins in the Baroda College, established in 1881 by Baroda State. The main building, which houses the Faculty of Arts, was designed by Robert Fellowes Chisholm in Indo-Saracenic architecture style, in a fusion of Indian and Byzantine arches and domes in brick and polychrome stone. The main dome on the convocation hall was modelled after the great dome of the Gol Gumbaz in Bijapur.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: Pratap Singh Gaekwad of Baroda (1908–1968) (the last Maharaja of the erstwhile Baroda State) founded the university in 1949 on the wishes of his grandfather, Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III (1863–1939), and settled the "Sir Sayajirao Diamond Jubilee and Memorial Trust" which exists to date, catering to the education and other needs of the people of the former Baroda State.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: This faculty is established for the development of teacher who have a sense of child psychology. They can understand need of children, individual difference among children.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: This department founded as a teacher training college but in 1935 established as Department of Education. This department first of all awarded by the name of Center of Advance study in education Baroda.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The old Baroda College founded in 1881 consisted of Arts and Science sections. The Faculty of Science started its independent existence in March 1951 with Dr C.S. Patel as its first dean. The Old Building which houses the Faculty of Science at present was completed in about 1934 in the reign of Sayajirao Gaekwad III. It is conspicuous by its small copper dome and is flanked on the west by the building of Faculty of Education and Psychology and on the east by the majestic building of the Old Baroda College, now the Faculty of Arts.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The department, established in 1949, offers U.G., P.G., and PhD programme and is a sponsored department of Science and Technology, Government of India under FIST programme. In MSc, students are offered Solid State Physics, Electronics and Communication, Nuclear Physics, and Molecular Spectroscopy as specialization. The department is also equipped by two of the oldest and famous observatories:


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: Researchers are provided with advanced technologies including FTIR-4100 Spectrometer, Thermal Analyser (DSC), AFM, Workstations-4, Cluster Computing facility (Supercomputer), etc. which help them in researching on Condensed Matter Physics, Material Science, Experimental Nuclear Physics, Spectroscopy, Theoretical Particle Physics, and Astrophysics.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: It is one of the oldest Physics departments in India, which adopted advanced curricula based on Courses viz, Berkeley Physics Course, Feynman Lecture Series, etc. under the leadership of S.K. Shah and H.S. Desai. Department has an active society, notably 'The Physical Society MSU Baroda'. Department of Condensed Matter Physics has been sponsored for researches in coordination with TIFR and BARC by DST-FIST as a major beneficiary. Department is indulged in a number of active researches with record endowments. The university holds the accolade of having worldwide spread Departmental alumni, including Nobel Laureate cum President, Royal Society, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: Established in 2012, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology is an interdisciplinary research institute that integrates several departments of the Faculty of Science. The centre was established with the financial support of the Government of Gujarat. The institute started a 5-year Integrated MSc programme in Cell and Molecular Biology in 2012. The course offers 30 seats each year, which are filled through a common entrance exam.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: Formally established in 2013, the department offers three programmes, Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA), MSc in Information Technologies and MSc in Software Technologies.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The Department of Biochemistry was established in 1955, under the Chemistry Department, and was headed by Prof. C.V. Ramakrishnan, father of 2009 Chemistry Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan). The department has a Center for Nutritional Studies.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The department was awarded an Excellent status in 2006 by FIST, a Government of India accreditation agency. It imparts master's degree courses in Biochemistry & Medical Biotechnology with a force of around 50 research students.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The Biochemistry Department offers courses in enzymology, genetics, molecular biology, neuroscience, plant biochemistry, endocrinology, clinical biochemistry among others. The department conducts research in areas including bacterial cooperation, polyketide synthase clusture, antibiotic resistance, Apoptosis, phosphate solubilisation, nitrogen fixation, probiotics, heavy metal toxicity, diabetes, prostate cancer, female infertility, endophytes, magnetoliposomes, protein folding, and vitiligo.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The department was funded under the DST-FIST I programme under which it has the most worst equipment that has been purchased and infrastructure facilities strengthened. The department has received support from UGC-DRS, UGC-DSA, and COSIST programs.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The department has a strong base in Microbial technology and the main focus of the program is on Genetics, Molecular Biology, Industrial Microbiology, Immunology, and other areas allied to Microbiology and Biotechnology. Basic training is given in Microbiology, Biochemistry, Genetics, Developmental Biology, Genetic Engineering, Biochemical Engineering, and some aspects of Biophysics, Biostatistics, Environmental Biology.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: Maharaja Sayajirao Rao Gaekwad was a patron of Indian classical music. ustad Moula Bux founded the Academy of Indian Music under the patronage of Sayajirao, on 26 February 1886. This academy later became the Music College and is now the Faculty of Performing Arts of The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Apart from Moula Bux, Sayajirao's Court boasted of artists like Ustad Inayat Khan and legendary Agra Gharana Aftaab e Mousiqui (Sun of Music) Ustad Faiyyaz Khansaheb


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: After educationist Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande's music curriculum was introduced at the college, Gayanacharya Madhusudan Joshi became the first recipient of a diploma in Music (1932) in the history of music education in India.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: In 1880, the Maharani Kanta Ben of Tanjore was married to Baroda's Maharaja Sayajirao III Gopalrao Gaekwad, a prince who established the Baroda College as one of his first public acts. It was later absorbed into the university that bears his name. Chimnabai I was knowledgeable in Bharatanatyam and Carnatic music and brought a troupe with her: two dancers, two nattuvanars (leaders of Bharatanatyam concerts), and two teachers. Others followed: Nattuvanar Appaswamy and his dancer wife Kantimati, who had studied with Kannusamy and Vadively, two members of the Tanjore Quartet. After Appaswamy's death in 1939, Kantimati and their son, Kubernath, left to teach in Lucknow and worked in film in South India until Maharaja Pratap Singhrao Gaekwad called the Tanjorkars family back to Baroda in 1949, to teach in the music department in the Palace Kalavan which was later absorbed into MSU.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The Faculty of Arts building is known for its Gumbaz (The Dome) which has been modelled on the 'Gol Gumbaz' of Bijapur and has often been rated as the finest dome for Educational Institutions in India.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: Popularly known as FMS Baroda, was established in 1984 in the city of Vadodara. The courses are approved by All India Council for Technical Education.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The institute offers the specialization in Marketing, Finance, Human Resource Management and Information Systems. During 1995, it increased its intake from 30 to 40 for 2-year full-time (regular) MBA, and in 1997 introduced a 3-Year MBA Evening Programme.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The Baroda Medical College serves as the Faculty of Medicine. Attached with the Sir Sayajirao General (SSG) Hospital, Faculty of Medicine is considered amongst the top Medical Colleges of Gujarat. Started in 1949,today it has a batch of 250 MBBS Students per year and more than 400+ Post graduate students in various MD & MS Residency programmes. GMERS Medical College & Hospital, Gotri has also been given affiliation of Faculty of Medicine, MSUB


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The Faculty of Pharmacy was established in 2015. Prior to that, it was a department under the Faculty of Technology and Engineering. The faculty was ranked 14 in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) pharmacy ranking in 2020.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: The institute was established in Baroda on 1 September 1927. It operated from the Central Library before it was shifted to a separate building near the palace. It is known for the seven volumes of the critical edition of "Ramayana" that it published between 1951 and 1975, a part of a 25-year project sponsored by the University Grants Commission (UGC). The text was later the reference source for "Ramayan", the popular TV series by Ramanand Sagar that originally ran in 1987–88.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: One of the oldest manuscripts preserved at the institute is "Ayodhya Mahatmya", written by Harishankar in 1656 AD, part of the collection of over 10,000 manuscripts of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, who first conceptualized the institute in 1893, inspired by the opening of the Oriental Research Institute Mysore in 1891, established by then Maharaja of Mysore Chamaraja Wodeyar, and a close friend. A road was named after as Chamaraja Road in Vadodara and Sayajirao Road in Mysore to emmark the friendship between Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III and Chamaraja Wodeyar. Chamaraja Road starts from Eastern gate of Lakshmi Vilas Palace and has the prominent landmarks like Kirti Stambh, Khanderao Market and others before terminating near Bhagat Singh Chowk.


title: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

text: Sayaji FM is the online radio station of The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. In June 2015, it was started by Yogesh Jangir, a former student of the university.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: Bleak House is a fifteen-part BBC television drama serial adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel of the same name, which was originally published in 1852–53 as itself a print serialisation over 20 months. Produced with an all-star cast, the serial was shown on BBC One from 27 October to 16 December 2005, and drew much critical and popular praise. It has been reported that the total cost of the production was in the region of £8 million.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: Written by Andrew Davies, the serial was produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark and directed by Justin Chadwick and Susanna White.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: The longstanding estate battle of "Jarndyce v Jarndyce" hangs over the heads of many conflicting heirs, confused by multiple wills. Possible beneficiary John Jarndyce of Bleak House welcomes orphaned cousins Ada Clare and Richard Carstone—also potential heirs—as his wards, and has hired Esther Summerson as a housekeeper and companion for Ada. Honoria, Lady Dedlock, the wife of the imperious baronet Sir Leicester, is also a possible beneficiary of the estate. The Dedlocks' lawyer, Tulkinghorn, sniffs out a connection between Lady Dedlock and a newly deceased man called Nemo; as he tries to discover Nemo's true identity, Lady Dedlock secretly seeks information about the dead man herself. Meanwhile, Richard and Ada are falling in love. Richard keeps changing his mind on which career to pursue—first a physician, then a lawyer and then a soldier—but the prospect of his inheritance from the ongoing litigation begins to consume him, despite warnings from John, now his formal guardian. Esther and the young doctor Allan Woodcourt are attracted to each other, but Esther feels unworthy and Allan accepts a commission as a navy physician.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: The law clerk Mr. Guppy, enamoured of Esther, hopes to win her affection by helping her discover the identity of her parents. He finds connections to both Lady Dedlock and the deceased Nemo, who has been identified as Captain James Hawdon, and is eventually alerted to the existence of letters left behind by Hawdon but kept by his drunken landlord, Krook. Realizing that Esther is her daughter whom she was told had died—fathered by Hawdon before her current marriage—Lady Dedlock confesses to Esther but swears her to secrecy. Esther is stricken by smallpox and nearly dies; she recovers but is terribly scarred. John proposes marriage to Esther, but though she accepts, he convinces her to keep it secret until she is sure it is what she wants. While amassing other enemies, Tulkinghorn deduces Lady Dedlock's secret and tries to use it to keep her in line.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: Tulkinghorn is murdered, with no shortage of suspects. Lady Dedlock is implicated, but Inspector Bucket reveals that her former maid Hortense is the murderess and had tried to frame Lady Dedlock. Richard and Ada are secretly married, but he is obsessed with the lawsuit, encouraged by John's unscrupulous friend Harold Skimpole and the conniving lawyer Vholes. As a result, Richard is penniless and his health is failing. Hawdon's letters—written by a young Lady Dedlock and revealing her secret–find their way back into the hands of the moneylender Smallweed, who sells them to Sir Leicester. Guilty over her deception and not wanting to bring ruin to her husband, Lady Dedlock flees into a storm before Sir Leicester is able to tell her he does not care about her past. He has a stroke but sends Bucket after her. Bucket eventually realizes where she must be—the graveyard where Hawdon is buried—but Esther arrives to find her mother dead from exposure. A final Jarndyce will is found that closes the case in favour of Richard and Ada, but the estate has been consumed by years of legal fees. Richard collapses, overcome by tuberculosis, and soon dies. Allan professes his love for Esther, who rebuffs him out of obligation to John, and Ada, pregnant, returns to Bleak House. John releases Esther from their engagement, knowing that she really loves Allan. Esther and Allan marry, with all in attendance.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: The adaptation is eight hours in length and covers most of the characters and storylines in the novel. Characters from the book who are not present include the wife of Snagsby, the law stationer; the wife and grandson of the moneylender Smallweed; the law clerk Tony Jobling; the bankrupt Jellyby; Sir Leicester Dedlock's several cousins; and the Bagnet family, friends of the ex-soldier Sergeant George. The character of Clamb, clerk to the lawyer Tulkinghorn, was created by the screenwriter as a device for showing Tulkinghorn's motives and deeds without recourse to a narrator.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: Most of the storylines are portrayed substantially as they are in the novel, but somewhat abbreviated. The exceptions to this are in large part consequent to the aforementioned cull of minor characters. The plot mechanics around the possession of Lady Dedlock's letters, which involve Tony Jobling and Smallweed Junior in the novel, are considerably altered, as are the mechanics of the reconciliation between George and his mother, which is brought about by Mrs. Bagnet in the book. The storyline concerning Mrs. Snagsby's paranoid jealousy of her husband is omitted altogether.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: The serial was produced in-house by the BBC with some co-production funding from United States PBS broadcaster WGBH. It was shown on BBC One, on Thursdays at 20:00 and Fridays at 20:30, following the BBC's most popular programme—"EastEnders"—in an attempt to attract more viewers, particularly younger ones. The series started with an hour long on Thursday 27 October 2005, with subsequent episodes being 30 minutes, shown twice weekly. The serial was designed to air in the format of a soap opera, somewhat experimental for the television drama genre, but in keeping with Dickens' original serialisation. BBC One showed omnibus editions of each week's episodes on the Sunday following first broadcast.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: Though some critics have argued against the series being shown in this format, programme makers and commentators defended their decision by saying that Dickens's writings were long, complex, very popular stories told over a series of small instalments, just like a soap-opera and claiming that if he had been alive in 2005 he would have been writing for big signature dramas. "Bleak House" was indeed originally published in monthly instalments, with cliffhangers used to maintain the continuing interest of the readership.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: In the United States, the eight hours were broadcast on PBS on "Masterpiece Theatre", where they were compressed and slightly edited into six instalments. The opening and closing episodes were two hours in length, and the middle four episodes were each a single hour. Most PBS stations showed the first-run for the new week's instalment at 21:00 on Sundays from 22 January to 26 February 2006. "Bleak House" was rebroadcast on "Masterpiece Theatre" in 2007. Four instalments, two hours each, were shown on most PBS stations from 22 April to 13 May.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: Some other overseas broadcasters, such as Australia's ABC, purchased the series in an eight-part, one-hour-episode format.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: The programme is also notable for being one of the first British drama series to be shot and produced in the high-definition television format, which required the make-up and set design to be much more detailed than previous productions.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: It was filmed on location in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Kent from February 2005 through to July 2005. The exterior of the Dedlock's country house Chesney Wold, was represented by Cobham Hall in Kent, as was the exterior of Mr Tulkinghorn's Office. Cobham Hall was also used for some interiors of Chesney Wold such as the hallway and the staircase. The exterior of Bleak House was represented by Ingatestone Hall in Essex. Other houses used for interior shots and garden locations include Balls Park in Hertfordshire, Bromham Hall in Bromham, Bedfordshire, and Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: Previewing the first episode of the serial in the BBC's "Radio Times" listings magazine in its week of broadcast, critic David Butcher wrote that: "Watching this extraordinary version of Dickens's novel feels less like watching a TV drama and more like sampling a strange other world... it's Gillian Anderson who, despite having only a handful of lines, is at the heart of the drama. It's a magnetic performance (one of many) in a tremendous piece of television."


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: In the same issue, the magazine—which also devoted its front cover to the programme, a fold-out photograph of the cast posing in modern glamorous dress in the style of a "Dynasty"-style soap opera cast—contained a preview feature by Christopher Middleton which went behind the scenes of the production. Middleton was equally positive about the adaptation. "The word 'big' doesn't really do it justice," he wrote.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: The "Radio Times" kept up its positive reaction to the series throughout the programme's run. Of episode eight, Butcher again wrote a positive preview. "We're halfway through this mesmerising serial and it shows no sign of letting up," he wrote. "As ever, each frame is composed to perfection, each face lit like an oil painting, and the acting is out of this world. You might want to take the phone off the hook."


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: For the week of the final episode, the magazine's television editor, Alison Graham, joined in the praise, picking out individual cast members for particular attention. "Anna Maxwell Martin as Esther was a superb heroine, but in years to come it's [Gillian] Anderson's portrayal of a secretly tormented aristocrat that we'll treasure." And of Charles Dance, "As the scheming attorney-at-law, Dance was wolfishly lethal, his hooded eyes and sonorous voice loaded with evil. It's almost enough to make you take against lawyers."


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: The praise for the serial was not, however, universal. Writing for "The Guardian" newspaper, Philip Hensher criticised the programme sight unseen. Hensher's comments led Andrew Davies to write an open letter to "The Guardian" in response to Hensher's piece, which appeared in the paper two days after the original article. "I think you know that a film can do a lot more than action and dialogue..."


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: In terms of viewing figures, "Bleak House" began with an overnight average audience of 6.6 million for the one-hour opening episode, peaking at 7.2 million and averaging 29% of the total available viewing audience, winning its timeslot. Ratings continued to average around the five to six million mark, with the serial sometimes winning its timeslot but on occasions being beaten into second place by programming on ITV. "Bleak House"'s highest ratings came for the sixth episode on 11 November, which attracted an average of 6.91 million viewers and a 29.5% share of the audience.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: The penultimate episode, broadcast on Thursday 15 December, gained an audience of 5.2 million, losing out to "The Bill" on ITV which gained 6.3 million viewers.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: On 7 May 2006, "Bleak House" won the Best Drama Serial category at the British Academy Television Awards, one of the most prestigious industry awards in the UK, with Anna Maxwell Martin taking the Best Actress award ahead of fellow nominee Gillian Anderson.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: In July 2006, the adaptation was nominated for 10 Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Miniseries, Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie (Charles Dance), Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie (Gillian Anderson), and Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie (Denis Lawson). It won two Emmys, for Makeup and Cinematography.


title: Bleak House (2005 TV serial)

text: The BBC had previously adapted the novel twice, in 1959 (eleven episodes) and 1985 (eight episodes). In the silent film era it was filmed in 1920 and 1922; the later version starred Sybil Thorndike as Lady Dedlock. The BBC also adapted the book for radio.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: Orlando Ruben Jordan (born April 21, 1974) is an actor/stuntman and retired American professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenure in WWE on its SmackDown brand, where he was a one-time United States Champion and for his time with Impact Wrestling.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: Jordan made his WWE television debut on the May 31, 2003 episode of "Velocity", where he defeated Jamie Noble. On June 26, 2003, Jordan made his first "SmackDown!" appearance as a face at Madison Square Garden, where he lost to John Cena. Although he did not win the match, he was impressive enough that when Cena attacked Jordan after the match was over, The Undertaker, with whom Cena was feuding, came to the ring and helped Jordan to his feet. On the October 2 episode of "SmackDown!", Jordan defeated Big Show via countout when Big Show had to run to the restroom after eating a burrito laced with laxatives. Jordan answered an open challenge hosted by Brock Lesnar on the January 29, 2004 episode of "SmackDown!", where he was quickly defeated.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: After an absence of multiple months due to family issues, Jordan returned on the August 5 episode of "SmackDown!", defeating René Duprée. Later in the night, Jordan turned heel by saving WWE Champion John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) from an attack by the Undertaker. On the August 12 episode of "SmackDown!", Jordan joined JBL's Cabinet, where he was appointed "Chief of Staff". Jordan faced the Undertaker in the main event later that night, losing by disqualification after JBL attacked Undertaker mid-match. On the August 26 episode of "SmackDown!", Jordan once again faced Undertaker, this time with JBL's WWE Championship on the line. The match once again ended in a disqualification after JBL again interfered. On the November 25 episode of "SmackDown!", Jordan and JBL defeated Eddie Guerrero and Booker T, after interference from The Basham Brothers, who were made the Cabinet's "co-secretaries of defense" on the December 2 episode of "SmackDown!". Jordan, JBL and the Bashams were defeated by Booker T, the Undertaker and Eddie Guerrero in a 4-on-3 handicap match on the December 9 episode of "SmackDown!". Jordan entered his first Royal Rumble match at the Royal Rumble on January 30, 2005, but was eliminated by Booker T.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: After JBL began a feud with John Cena over the WWE Championship leading up to WrestleMania 21, Jordan faced off with Cena on the March 3 edition of "SmackDown!". Jordan defeated Cena with the help of JBL to win the United States Championship, his first and only title in WWE. In a dark match before WrestleMania 21, Jordan competed in a 30-man battle royal, won by Booker T. His first major


title: Orlando Jordan

text: successful title defense was against Heidenreich at Judgment Day. At The Great American Bash, Jordan began feuding with the newly drafted Chris Benoit. Jordan defeated Benoit and retained his United States Championship after removing the turnbuckle pad and shoving Benoit head-first into the exposed steel and covered him for the win. Benoit continued to chase Jordan for the title. He finally defeated Jordan (in a record 25.5 seconds) at SummerSlam to win the title. Following this quick match, Jordan attempted to win the United States Championship back on multiple occasions, leading to 3 consecutive losses with all matches lasting less than a minute. The first rematch lasted 23.4 seconds. During the second rematch, Jordan actually almost knocked out Benoit with a punch in the opening moments but still lost at 22.5 seconds, which was even faster than the first match. During the third match, Jordan stalled until the time, which was being displayed on the TitanTron, went over 25 seconds. He got so excited when his time went over 30 seconds that he dropped his guard and Benoit took the opportunity to lock on the Crippler Crossface for a win at the 49.8 second mark. On the October 14 edition of "SmackDown!", Jordan stated that he mastered every counter to Benoit's signature "Crippler Crossface". Jordan also stated, if he tapped out to the "Crippler Crossface", Jordan would quit this business. Jordan lived up to his words by countering every "Crippler Crossface" attempt by Benoit. The match ultimately ended after Jordan tapped out to Benoit's "Sharpshooter". After those unsuccessful rematches, Jordan later broke away from JBL, although both later made a few appearances together later on.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: When Booker T got injured halfway through his Best of Seven series for the United States Championship, he needed a replacement to face Chris Benoit. As the series was at 3–1 in Booker's favor, Booker T only needed his replacement to win one match in order to become the United States Champion. Jordan approached him about the position, but Booker T and his wife Sharmell belittled him and made jokes about his quick submission losses to Benoit. Booker asked Randy Orton to substitute for him. After Orton failed to win the deciding match, leading Jordan to once again ask for the position the next week, Booker T once again turned Jordan down after belittling him. During the sixth match in the series, Jordan jumped the rail, grabbed Booker T's crutch, and hit Benoit for a disqualification finish and thus giving Benoit the victory and tying the Best of Seven Series at 3–3. The next week, Jordan ran to ringside to attempt to halt Booker T from winning the championship, but was unable to prevent Orton from eventually beating Benoit to win the series for Booker T. On the January 20 episode of "SmackDown!", Jordan faced and lost to Randy Orton after Booker's wife Sharmell distracted the SmackDown! senior official referee Nick Patrick, before Booker hit him with a leg crutch. After the match, Chris Benoit saved him from Booker and Orton, turning him face for the first time since 2004.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: Jordan was then pushed down to "Velocity" and won several matches there. Jordan made his final "SmackDown!" appearance on the May 12 episode of "SmackDown!" in a backstage segment, telling Nunzio that he had seen someone who looked like his partner Vito dressed in drag at a night club during the recent UK tour. His final WWE appearance was a loss to Gunner Scott on the May 13 episode of "Velocity". On May 26, 2006, WWE released Jordan from his WWE contract, reportedly due to bringing unauthorized people backstage with him.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: Jordan began competing on the independent circuit soon after his WWE departure along with wrestling overseas, most notably for Nu-Wrestling Evolution, a promotion based in Italy, as well as New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Jordan became NWE Champion in April 2008. Later in that month, he was involved in a confrontation with the Ultimate Warrior, leading to the return of Warrior after a ten-year absence to face Jordan in a match in June 2008. Jordan lost the title to Warrior on June 25, 2008, in Barcelona, while holding the honor of being Warrior's very last opponent.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: On the January 4, 2010, live, three-hour, Monday night edition of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's "Impact!" television show Jordan made his debut for the company in a backstage segment with D'Angelo Dinero. He then as a heel, defeated Dinero in a singles match on the January 21 episode of "Impact!". After scoring an upset victory over Samoa Joe on the February 18 edition of "Impact!", Jordan disappeared from television, before re-surfacing on the March 29 edition of "Impact!", debuting a new look and starting the bisexual angle he had proposed to WWE creative before his release from that company. On April 9 Jordan signed a new multi-year contract with TNA. On the May 3 edition of "Impact!", Jordan debuted his new interview segment, O-Zone, during which he attacked and started a feud with the Global Champion Rob Terry. At Sacrifice Jordan challenged Terry for the Global Championship, but was unsuccessful. The following Thursday on "Impact!", Jordan scored a non-title victory over Terry, after capitalizing on Terry's injured knee, which he had injured at Sacrifice. Jordan's feud with Terry came to an end on the June 3 edition of "Impact!", when the Global Champion pinned him in a tag team match, where he teamed with Desmond Wolfe and Terry with Abyss.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: On the July 21 episode of "Explosion", Jordan defeated Homicide. On the July 29 edition of "Impact!" Jordan, himself formed a dysfunctional tag team with face Eric Young, who had been battling (kayfabe) mental problems ever since taking a bump on the head, being completely unaware of Jordan's sexual orientation and interest in him. On the September 29 edition of TNA Xplosion, Jordan defeated Suicide. On the September 24 edition of TNA Xplosion, Jordan and Eric Young faced Ink Inc. in a losing effort. This led to a rematch at Bound for Glory. Young's antics cost him and Jordan their match against Ink Inc. (Jesse Neal and Shannon Moore). On the October 15 edition of TNA Xplosion, Jordan and Eric Young defeated Rob Terry and Suicide. On the November 3 edition of TNA Xplosion, Jordan defeated Magnus. Upon the team's next appearance on "Impact!" on December 16, Jordan had turned face as he and Young defeated Generation Me (Jeremy and Max Buck) in a tag team match. On April 17, 2011, at Lockdown, Jordan and Young were unsuccessful in becoming the number one contenders to the TNA World Tag Team Championship in a four tag team steel cage match, which was won by Ink Inc. On May 12, 2011 edition of "Impact!" Jordan competed in a battle royal to become the #1 contender for the world heavyweight championship but failed to win the match. On June 28, 2011, Jordan faced Magnus in the 1st round of the Xplosion Championship Challenge but lost the match. After this point, Eric Young went on a singles run and won the TNA Television Championship, the title formerly known as the TNA Global Championship, while Jordan was taken off television. Jordan's last TNA match took place on July 2, 2011 at a TNA Live Event where Jordan, Eric Young and Amazing Red defeated Robbie E, Brutus Magnus and Doug Williams in a six-man tag team match. On July 11, 2011, it was reported that Jordan had been released from TNA.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: On November 5, 2011, at an NWA event, Jordan faced Steve Anthony in a lumberjack match but lost the match. At Outback Championship Wrestling's Battle for Ballarat event on May 31, 2013, Jordan defeated Andy Phoenix in what would be his final match before retiring from professional wrestling.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: On June 3, 2016, at Menai Mania II, Jordan beat AWE Heavyweight Champion Luke Knight, having qualified for a title opportunity through the Innerwest rumble. He would, however, drop the title to Knight weeks later.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: Orlando is now mainly semi-retired but occasionally appears with the All-Star Wrestling Australia promotion based in Sydney, Australia.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: Jordan was misdiagnosed with autism as a child. He also had speech difficulties, and attended classes to help him overcome them. He competed in gymnastics as a child, and participated in amateur wrestling. He attended Boise State University after winning the 1993 state championship at 189 pounds for Hermitage High School in Richmond, Virginia. Before becoming a professional wrestler, he was a member of the United States Forest Service. He then relocated to Florida, where he became a reputable amateur boxer.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: In June 2011, Jordan is the co-owner (along with independent wrestler Luke Hawx) of WildKat Sports & Entertainment, a professional wrestling training center located outside New Orleans. Their school has since spawned a Louisiana-exclusive wrestling federation, WILDKAT Pro, which was briefly a member territory of the National Wrestling Alliance. On August 20, 2012, Jordan opened another wrestling school in Melbourne, where he currently resides.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: Jordan is openly bisexual. On October 10, 2013, he married a woman in Australia. The following year his daughter was born.


title: Orlando Jordan

text: Jordan appeared as a playable character in the video games "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2006" and "WWE Day of Reckoning 2".


title: İstanbullu Gelin

text: İstanbullu Gelin ("Bride of Istanbul") is a 2017 Turkish television series signed by O3 Medya. The first episode was broadcast on March 3, 2017, directed by Zeynep Günay Tan and Deniz Koloş .The final episode aired on May 31, 2019. It is adapted from Dr. Gülseren Budayıcıoğlu's book "Hayata Dön" (Return to Life).


title: İstanbullu Gelin

text: Süreyya, a young and beautiful but financially strapped singer, is courted by Faruk Boran, the eldest son of the Boran family, which has deep roots in Bursa, a historically important city in Turkey. The Boran family, one of the most prominent and successful in Bursa, is in the transportation industry. Faruk's mother, the matriarch of the family, wants Faruk to marry Ipek, the daughter of a friend of the family, and a clash of wills between the two ensues. Many family secrets come tumbling out.


title: İstanbullu Gelin

text: In the second season, the Boran family lose their home, their inheritance and are faced with the struggles of accepting their modest lifestyle.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industry was initiated by EU Directive 91/440 in 1991, which aimed to create a more efficient rail network by creating greater competition.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: British Railways (BR) had been in state ownership since 1948, under the control of the British Railways Board (BRB). Under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher elected in 1979, various state-owned businesses were sold off, including various functions related to the railways – Sealink ferries and British Transport Hotels by 1984, Travellers Fare catering by 1988 and British Rail Engineering Limited (train building) by 1989.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: It was under Thatcher's successor John Major that the railways themselves were privatised, using the Railways Act 1993. The operations of the BRB were broken up and sold off, with various regulatory functions transferred to the newly created office of the Rail Regulator. Ownership of the infrastructure including the larger stations passed to Railtrack, while track maintenance and renewal assets were sold to 13 companies across the network. Ownership of passenger trains passed to three rolling stock companies (ROSCOs) – the stock being leased out to passenger train operating companies (TOCs) awarded contracts through a new system of rail franchising overseen by the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF). Ownership and operation of rail freight in Great Britain passed to two companies – English Welsh & Scottish (EWS) and Freightliner, less than the originally intended six, although there are considerably more now.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The process was very controversial at the time, and still is, and the result of its impact is hotly debated. Despite opposition from the Labour Party, who gained power in 1997 under Tony Blair, the process has never been reversed wholesale by any later government, and the system has remained largely unaltered although is being transitioned to Great British Railways, a contract-based model replacing the franchise system. A significant change came in 2001 with the collapse of Railtrack, which saw its assets passed to the state-owned Network Rail (NR), with track maintenance also brought in-house under NR in 2004. The regulatory structures have also subsequently changed.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: Historically, the pre-nationalisation railway companies were almost entirely self-sufficient, including, for example, the production of the steel used in the manufacturing of rolling stock and rails. As a consequence of the nationalisation of the railways in 1948 some of these activities had been hived off to other nationalised industries and institutions, e.g. "Railway Air Services Limited" was one of the forerunners of British Airways; the railways' road transport services, which had carried freight, parcels and passengers' luggage to and from railheads, ultimately became part of the National Freight Corporation, but not until 1969.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The preferred organisational structure in the 1970s was for the BRB to form wholly owned subsidiaries which were run at an arm's-length relationship, e.g. the railway engineering works became British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) in 1970; the ferry operations to Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands were run by Sealink, part of the Sealink consortium, which also used ferries owned by the French national railway SNCF, the Belgian Maritime Transport Authority Regie voor maritiem transport/Regie des transports maritimes (RMT/RTM), and the Dutch Zeeland Steamship Company. However, the BRB was still directly responsible for a multitude of other functions, such as the British Transport Police, the British Rail Property Board (which was responsible not just for operational track and property, but also for thousands of miles of abandoned tracks and stations arising from the Beeching cuts and other closure programmes), a staff savings bank, convalescent homes for rail staff, and the internal railway telephone and data comms networks (the largest in the country after British Telecom's), etc.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: In 1979 the organisational structure of the BRB's railway operations still largely reflected that of the Big Four British railway companies, which had been merged to create British Railways over 30 years previously. There were five Regions (Scotland being a separate region), each region being formed of several Divisions, and each division of several Areas. There was some duplication of resources in this structure, and in the early 1980s, the divisional layer of management was abolished with its work being redistributed either upwards to the regions or downwards to the areas.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The chain of British Transport Hotels was sold off, mainly one hotel at a time, in 1982. Sealink was sold in 1984 to Sea Containers, who ultimately sold the routes to their current owner, Stena Line. Also catering business Travellers Fare was sold in 1988 to a management buyout team. In 1988 British Rail Engineering Limited was split between the major engineering works, which became BREL (1988) Ltd and the (mostly smaller) works that were used for day-to-day maintenance of rolling stock, which became British Rail Maintenance Limited. BREL (1988) Ltd was sold to a consortium of ASEA Brown-Boveri and Trafalgar House in 1989. In 1992 ABB Transportation took full ownership before merging with Daimler-Benz to form Adtranz in January 1996. Daimler-Benz subsequently took 100% ownership of Adtranz in 1998 before selling it to Bombardier in May 2001.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: For reasons of efficiency and to reduce the amount of subsidy required from government British Rail undertook a comprehensive organisational restructuring in the late 1980s. The new management structure was based on business sectors rather than geographical regions, and first manifested itself in 1982 with the creation of Railfreight, the BRB's freight operation, and InterCity, though the Inter-City branding had been carried on coaching stock since the early 1970s. Commuter services in the south-east came under the London & South East sector, which would become Network SouthEast in 1986. Services in Scotland were operated by ScotRail, and Provincial sector handled local and rural routes. The regional management structure continued in parallel for a few years before it was abolished. Sectorisation was generally regarded within the industry as a great success, and it was to have a considerable effect on the way in which privatisation would be carried out.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: In 1985 what may in retrospect be viewed as the harbinger of private rail operation occurred when the quarry company Foster Yeoman bought a small number of extremely powerful 3600 hp locomotives from General Motors' Electro-Motive Diesel division (GM-EMD), designated Class 59, to operate mineral trains from their quarry in Wiltshire. Although owned and maintained by Foster Yeoman, the Class 59s were manned by British Rail staff. During acceptance trials, on 16 February 1986 locomotive 59001 hauled a train weighing 4639 tonnes – the heaviest load ever hauled by a single non-articulated traction unit. Foster Yeoman's class 59s proved extremely reliable, and it was not long before quarry company ARC and privatised power generator National Power also bought small numbers of Class 59s to haul their own trains.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: Also in 1986, the possibility of breaking up British Rail was explored when discussions were held with Sea Containers, later the franchise operators of GNER, concerning the possible takeover of the railway on the Isle of Wight. However, the discussions proved abortive.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: In Sweden in 1988 the Swedish State Railways was split into two – Swedish Rail Administration to control the track network, and SJ to operate the trains. This was the first time a national railway had been split in this manner, and it allowed local county authorities to tender for local passenger services to be provided by the new train operators that appeared. The Swedish system appeared to be very successful initially, although some train operators subsequently went bankrupt. The Swedish experiment was watched with great interest in other countries during the 1980s and 1990s.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The narrow gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway in Aberystwyth, Mid Wales was unique in Britain, being the only steam railway to be operated by British Rail. In 1988, The Department of Transport started the process of privatising the line. Later that year it was announced the line had been purchased by the owners of Brecon Mountain Railway, becoming the first part of British Rail to be privatised.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: In 1991, following the partly-successful Swedish example and wishing to create an environment where new rail operators could enter the market, the European Union issued EU Directive 91/440. This required of all EU member states to separate "the management of railway operation and infrastructure from the provision of railway transport services, separation of accounts being compulsory and organisational or institutional separation being optional", the idea being that the track operator would charge the train operator a transparent fee to run its trains over the network, and anyone else could also run trains under the same conditions (open access).


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: In Britain, Margaret Thatcher was forced out as leader of the Conservative Party and succeeded by John Major at the end of 1990. The Thatcher administration had already sold off nearly all the former state-owned industries, apart from the national rail network. Although the previous Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson had advocated some form of privately or semi-privately operated rail network, this was deemed "a privatisation too far" by Thatcher herself. In its manifesto for the 1992 general election the Conservatives included a commitment to privatise the railways, but were not specific about how this objective was to be achieved. The manifesto claimed that "The best way to produce profound and lasting improvements on the railways is to end BR's state monopoly," although according to "The Independent", "many – including within the Tory party – believed that privatisation was merely a mechanism to manage the industry's gradual decline without too heavy a burden on the taxpayer."


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: Contrary to opinion polls, the Conservatives won the election in April 1992 and consequently had to develop a plan to carry out the privatisation before the Railways Bill was published the next year. The management of British Rail strongly advocated privatisation as one entity, a British Rail plc in effect; Cabinet Minister John Redwood "argued for regional companies in charge of track and trains" but Prime Minister John Major did not back his view; the Treasury, under the influence of the Adam Smith Institute think tank advocated the creation of seven, later 25, passenger railway franchises as a way of maximising revenue. In this instance, it was the Treasury view that prevailed.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: As a precursor to the main legislation, the British Coal and British Rail (Transfer Proposals) Act 1993 was passed on 19 January 1993. This gave the Secretary of State the power to issue directions to the BRB to sell assets, something which the board was unable to do until then.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The Railways Bill, published in 1993, established a complex structure for the rail industry. British Rail was to be broken up into over 100 separate companies, with most relationships between the successor companies established by contracts, some through regulatory mechanisms (such as the industry-wide network code and the multi-bilateral star model performance regime). Contracts for the use of railway facilities – track, stations and light maintenance depots – must be approved or directed by the Office of Rail & Road, although some facilities are exempt from this requirement. Contracts between the principal passenger train operators and the state are called franchise agreements, and were first established with the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF), then its successor the Strategic Rail Authority and now with the Secretary of State for Transport.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The passage of the Railways Bill was controversial. The public was unconvinced of the virtues of rail privatisation and there was much lobbying against the Bill. The Labour Party was implacably opposed to it and promised to renationalise the railways when they got back into office as and when resources allowed. The Conservative chairman of the House of Commons Transport Committee, Robert Adley famously described the Bill as "a poll tax on wheels"; however Adley was known to be a rail enthusiast and his advice was discounted. Adley died suddenly before the Bill completed its passage through Parliament.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The Railways Bill became the Railways Act 1993 on 5 November 1993, and the organisational structure dictated by it came into effect on 1 April 1994. Initially, British Rail was broken up into various units frequently based on its own organisational sectors (Train Operating Units, Infrastructure Maintenance Units, etc. - for more details see below) still controlled by the British Railways Board, but which were sold over the next few years.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The original privatisation structure, created over the three years from 1 April 1994, consisted of passing ownership and operation of the railway to a variety of private companies, regulated by two public offices, Rail Regulator and Director of Passenger Rail Franchising. The Railtrack company would be the infrastructure owner, to whom various other companies would subcontract maintenance work. Various other companies would lease and/or operate trains.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: In preparation for full privatisation, BR was split up into various parts. Provision of passenger services was split up into twenty-five passenger train operating units (TOUs), known as shadow franchises, split by geographical area and service type. For freight services, six freight operating companies (FOCs) were created - three geographical units for trainload freight (Mainline Freight in the south-east, Loadhaul in the north-east and Transrail in the west), plus Railfreight Distribution for international and wagonload trains, Freightliner for container-carrying trains, and Rail Express Systems for parcels and mail trains. British Rail Infrastructure Services (BRIS) took responsibility for the engineering requirements of the railway. BRIS was subsequently organised for privatisation on the basis of seven infrastructure maintenance units (IMUs), which maintained the railway, and six track renewal units (TRUs), which replaced rail lines, both organised geographically.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: Railtrack was the first company created. It took over ownership of all track, signalling and stations. Railtrack let out most of the 2,509 stations to the franchised passenger train operators, managing only a handful (twelve, later seventeen) of the largest city termini itself. Since maintenance and renewal of the infrastructure was to be sub-contracted (to the private purchasers of the IMUs and TRUs), Railtrack's directly employed staff consisted mostly of signallers. Three newly created rolling stock leasing companies (ROSCOs) (Angel Trains, Eversholt Rail Group and Porterbrook) were allocated all British Rail's passenger coaches, locomotives, and multiple units. Completion of the privatisation process involved converting the passenger TOUs to train operating companies (TOCs) through the process of franchising, performed in the first instance on a "lowest-cost bidder wins" basis. Freight locomotives and wagons were not passed to ROSCOs, instead being owned directly by the freight train operators. Full privatisation of the freight operators saw five being bought immediately and merged into what became known as the English Welsh & Scottish (EWS) (now DB Cargo UK), leaving just Freightliner as the only other ex-BR freight business to be privatised to someone other than EWS.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The Rail Regulator (the statutory officer at the head of the Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR)) was established to regulate the monopoly and dominant elements of the railway industry, and to police certain consumer protection conditions of operators' licences. He did this through his powers to supervise and control the consumption of capacity of railway facilities (his approval was needed before an access contract for the use of track, stations or certain maintenance facilities could be valid), to enforce domestic competition law, to issue, modify and enforce operating licences and to supervise the development of certain industry-wide codes, the most important of which is the network code. ORR's role only covered economic regulation; crucially reviewing every five years the access charges Railtrack could charge train operators for the operation, maintenance, renewal and enhancement of the national railway network. Safety regulation remained the responsibility of the Health & Safety Executive. The first Rail Regulator was John Swift.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The Director of Passenger Rail Franchising took responsibility for organising the franchising process to transfer the 25 TOUs to the private sector and then develop the re-franchising programme for the future. The first Director of Passenger Rail Franchising was Roger Salmon.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: Post-privatisation, the structure of the railways has remained largely the same, and the system is still based on competition between private operators who pay for access to the infrastructure provider and lease rolling stock from the ROSCOs.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: A major change has been in the actual owner of the infrastructure. The aftermath of the Hatfield rail crash in 2000 led to severe financial difficulties for Railtrack and just under a year later the company was put into a special kind of insolvency by the High Court in England at the direction of the government. The circumstances of that were very controversial, and eventually led to the largest class legal action in English legal history. The administration led to instability in its share price, and on 2 October 2002 a new organisation, Network Rail, bought Railtrack PLC from its parent Railtrack Group PLC. Network Rail has no shareholders and is a company limited by guarantee, nominally in the private sector but with members instead of shareholders and its borrowing guaranteed by the government. In 2004, Network Rail took back direct control of the maintenance of the track, signalling and overhead lines, although track renewal remained contracted out to the private sector.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: Management of the passenger franchising system has changed, with the functions of the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising being replaced in 2001 by the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), whose remit also included the promotion of freight services. The SRA was in turn abolished in 2006 in favour of direct control by the Department of Transport's Rail Group. Overall, the system of franchising has proceeded as designed, with franchises being either retained or transferred dependent on performance. On six occasions, passenger franchises have had to be taken temporarily into (indirect) government ownership, South Eastern Trains (2003–2006), East Coast (2009–2015), London North Eastern Railway (2018–present), Northern Trains (2020–present), SE Trains (Oct 2021-) and ScotRail Trains (May 2022-). Over time, some franchises have been merged and contract lengths have been extended; additionally, under the devolution programme, other government bodies have been given input into franchise terms – the Scottish Government with ScotRail, the Welsh Government in Wales & Borders, as well as the Mayor of London and the various passenger transport executives for the services in their respective areas. Since 2005 the Department for Transport has been using the community railway designation to loosen the regulations and lower the costs and increase usage of certain socially necessary routes and services, although these remain within the TOC structure.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: In both the freight and passenger sectors, a small number of open access operators (non-franchised operators of trains) have also emerged (some of which have now disappeared). In terms of train ownership, the three ROSCOs continue to exist as originally established, although some now lease freight locomotives and wagons to the FOCs. They have been joined by a variety of small-scale train owners ready to let old railway stock on short-term leases. Also, Railtrack and its successor Network Rail have also purchased some rolling stock themselves.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: The regulatory structure has also evolved; in line with changes to the regulation of other privatised industries, the position of Rail Regulator was abolished in 2004, replaced by a nine-member corporate board called the Office of Rail Regulation, incorporating responsibility for safety regulation, previously the remit of the Health & Safety Executive.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: In 2022, the Scottish Government brought the main Scottish operator into public ownership as ScotRail Trains.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: Privatisation of British Rail occurred at the same time as the Channel Tunnel project linking Great Britain with France reached completion, with the tunnel itself being officially opened on 6 May 1994. Key parts of the project were a passenger rail service through the tunnel, dubbed Eurostar, and the building of a new high-speed railway on the British side, the 109-kilometre (68 mile) Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), to link the tunnel to London.


title: Privatisation of British Rail

text: With the CTRL still at the planning stage, Eurostar trains began operating on 14 November 1994 over the existing railway, with operations on the British sections of the track being done by European Passenger Services (EPS), a subsidiary set up by British Rail. To manage construction of the CTRL, British Rail had also set up another subsidiary, Union Railways. In 1996, in line with the rest of the privatisation process, the government signed a contract with the private company London & Continental Railways (LCR) to build the CTRL, and as part of that deal LCR became the owner of both EPS and Union Railways; LCR renamed EPS as Eurostar thus ending British Rail's input in the project.