text: Lord of Sidon

text: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: Gerard of Sidon

text: Eustace Grenier

text: Agnes of Courtenay

text: Amalric

text: Count of Jaffa and Ascalon

text: King of Jerusalem

text: Baldwin

text: Sibylla

text: Hugh of Ibelin

text: consanguinity

text: William of Tyre

text: leprous

text: "bailli"

text: Raymond III of Tripoli

text: Miles of Plancy

text: Battle of Montgisard

text: Battle of Jacob's Ford

text: William of Tyre

text: Sidon

text: Saladin

text: Henry II of England

text: Poitevin

text: Guy of Lusignan

text: Amalric

text: Baldwin V

text: William of Montferrat

text: Balian of Ibelin

text: Tripoli

text: Gerard of Ridefort

text: Knights Templar

text: Roger de Moulins

text: Knights Hospitaller

text: Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre

text: Battle of Cresson

text: Nablus

text: Beaufort

text: Battle of Hattin

text: Joscelin III of Edessa

text: Third Crusade

text: Tyre

text: William of Tyre

text: Ernoul

text: Conrad of Montferrat

text: Damascus

text: Islam

text: Arabic

text: French

text: Helvis

text: Balian of Ibelin

text: Maria Comnena

text: Third Crusade

text: Humphrey IV of Toron

text: Isabella of Jerusalem

text: Payen of Haifa

text: Lignages d'Outremer

text: Arabic literature

text: Al-Adil

text: Richard I

text: Balian

text: Maria

text: Raoul of Saint Omer

text: seneschal of Jerusalem

text: Balian

text: Guy of Montfort

text: William of Tyre

text: Columbia University Press

text: Lignages d'Outremer

text: Reinhold Röhricht

categories: 1130s births,1202 deaths,Christians of the Crusades

paragraph: Reginald of Sidon

paragraph: Reginald Grenier (1130s – 1202; also Reynald or Renaud) was Lord of Sidon and an important noble in the late-12th century Kingdom of Jerusalem.

paragraph: Section::::Rise to fame.

paragraph: Reginald was the son of Gerard of Sidon and Agnes of Bures, and a grandson of Eustace Grenier. He first rose to prominence in the Kingdom in 1170, when he married Agnes of Courtenay, who had been married three times before: firstly to Reginald of Marash, who left her a widow; secondly (possibly bigamously) to Amalric, Count of Jaffa and Ascalon and future King of Jerusalem, with whom she had two children, Baldwin and Sibylla, and thirdly to Hugh of Ibelin, her fiancé or husband before her marriage to Amalric. Her marriage to Amalric was annulled in 1163 when it was discovered that the two were related within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. Some writers have claimed that the marriage between Agnes and Reginald of Sidon was annulled as well, as they were related within the prohibited degrees, but this is based on a misinterpretation of William of Tyre, who says Gerard discovered the relationship between "the two aforementioned people". However, this must be referring back to the marriage of Agnes and Amalric: Gerard was dead by the time of Reginald's marriage. In December 1179, ""Agnes, Countess of Sidon"" and ""Reginald of Sidon"" witnessed a charter together: there is no evidence to suggest they were not still a couple. (See Hamilton, "The Leper King & his Heirs" for further discussion of this.)

paragraph: In 1174, Amalric died and was succeeded by his leprous and underaged son Baldwin IV. Reginald now became stepfather to the king. A "bailli", or regent, needed to be appointed, and Reginald was among the supporters of Raymond III of Tripoli (Amalric's first cousin) over Miles of Plancy for this post.

paragraph: Reginald was present at the Battle of Montgisard in 1177, but not at the Battle of Jacob's Ford in 1179, having arrived too late with his forces; according to William of Tyre, he could have saved many of the refugees from the battle if he had continued on his way, but when he returned to Sidon, these refugees were killed in ambushes. He participated in the defense of the kingdom when Saladin invaded in 1183; this time William lists him among those "distinguished for prowess in battle." His wife was sometimes present on military campaigns, looking after her ailing but determined son.

paragraph: Section::::Succession disputes in the Kingdom.

paragraph: By this time Baldwin IV was ruling on his own, without the need for a regent. To boost the hope of military support from his cousin Henry II of England and to reduce Raymond of Tripoli's influence, in 1180 Baldwin had married his widowed sister Sibylla to a Poitevin noble, Guy of Lusignan, a vassal of the Angevins, whose older brother Amalric had already established himself at court. As the king's health failed, he appointed Guy regent in 1183 during Saladin's invasion, although Raymond and his allies were extremely hostile towards him. However, the king soon became disillusioned with Guy's abilities and demoted him. In 1183 he had Baldwin V, the young son of Sibylla and her first husband William of Montferrat, crowned as co-king, in an attempt to prevent Sibylla and Guy from succeeding. Reginald supported this and was present at the coronation.

paragraph: Agnes died probably in the second half of 1184, and Baldwin IV in spring 1185. Baldwin V, with Raymond III as regent, lasted as king for less than a year before he too died in 1186. Reginald was among the nobles who tried to prevent Sibylla and Guy succeeding to the throne after Baldwin V's death, but failed.

paragraph: Section::::Battle of Hattin and the Third Crusade.

paragraph: The dispute between Guy and Raymond threatened the security of the Kingdom, as Guy planned to besiege Raymond's fief of Tiberias, which itself had allied with Saladin. Balian of Ibelin, another of Raymond's supporters, instead suggested that Guy send an embassy to Raymond in Tripoli, hoping the two could be reconciled before Guy made a foolish attack on Saladin's larger army. Reginald accompanied Balian, Gerard of Ridefort (Grand Master of the Knights Templar), Roger de Moulins (Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller), and Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre to Tripoli. On May 1, the Templars and Hospitallers were defeated by Saladin's son al-Afdal at the Battle of Cresson; Balian had stopped at his fief of Nablus and Reginald had stopped at his castle at Beaufort, and the two were not present for the fighting. Raymond heard news of the defeat, met the embassy at Tiberias, and accompanied them back to Jerusalem.

paragraph: The subsequent invasion of the Kingdom by Saladin was met by Guy, Raymond, and the crusader army at the Battle of Hattin. The battle was a crushing defeat for the crusaders; Reginald was in the rearguard with Balian and Joscelin III of Edessa, his late wife's brother, and escaped with them; according to later western chronicles of the Third Crusade, they were cowards and trampled their own men in the rush, but more likely they were simply trying to break the Muslim encirclement of the crusader army. This did not work, and Reginald and Balian fled to Tyre, where Reginald may have briefly taken command of the city after the departure of Raymond of Tripoli. The thirteenth century "Old French Continuation of William of Tyre", also known as the "Chronicle of Ernoul", claims that he was in the process of negotiating its surrender to Saladin when Conrad of Montferrat arrived. Saladin had given Reginald banners to be hung from the city's towers, but Reginald was afraid of retaliation from the citizens if Saladin himself was not present. Conrad threw the banners away and expelled Reginald. However, this is questionable: the Arab chroniclers say nothing of this, and subsequently Reginald and Conrad were close allies. Reginald may have left Tyre for Beaufort (Sidon having also been captured in the aftermath of Hattin), just as Raymond III had left for Tripoli: the priority of such magnates being to defend their own territories. However, he was certainly back in Tyre in 1188, when he witnessed a charter for Conrad.

paragraph: In 1189, Reginald entered into negotiations with Saladin for the surrender of Beaufort. He offered to retire to Damascus and convert to Islam, but it was all a ruse: he was only wasting time in order to allow the defenses of the castle to be strengthened. Upon returning to the castle he ordered its guards to stand down in Arabic, but in French told them to continue their resistance. According to "The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre", Saladin tortured Reginald outside the castle until the garrison surrendered, although in reality it does not seem to have surrendered at this time; Reginald was imprisoned in Damascus, and the castle eventually fell on April 22, 1190, in return for his release.

paragraph: After his release, Reginald married Helvis, the eldest daughter of Balian of Ibelin and Maria Comnena. He then played an influential role in the politics of the Third Crusade. He supported the annulment of the marriage of Humphrey IV of Toron and Isabella of Jerusalem, so that Isabella could be married off to Conrad of Montferrat; the anonymous author of the "Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi" calls Reginald a member of a "council of consummate iniquity" (together with Balian of Ibelin and Maria Comnena and Payen of Haifa) for supporting this act. His Arabic skills made him useful as a diplomat: he negotiated with Saladin on behalf of Conrad in 1191-92, and later helped negotiate peace between Richard and Saladin in 1192. Sidon was recovered from Saladin in 1197.

paragraph: Section::::Personal life.

paragraph: Reginald was described in the "Lignages d'Outremer" as "extremely ugly and very wise". He was one of the few native barons of the Kingdom who spoke Arabic and was knowledgeable about Arabic literature. He was on good terms with Saladin's brother Al-Adil: his negotiations with Conrad were discovered by Richard I's faction when Humphrey of Toron saw him going hunting with Al-Adil. This did not endear him to those western chroniclers who supported Richard and Guy of Lusignan: like Raymond of Tripoli, he was even (falsely) accused of having secretly converted to Islam.

paragraph: After his release from captivity in 1190, he married Helvis of Ibelin, daughter of his friends Balian and Maria, and over 40 years his junior (she was probably born in 1178). He had three children, all apparently by Helvis, according to the "Lignages d'Outremer", although some modern genealogies suggest that the two girls may have been by Agnes.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Agnes, m. Raoul of Saint Omer, seneschal of Jerusalem (stepson of Raymond III of Tripoli).

paragraph: BULLET::::- Fenie (Euphemia), m. Odo of Saint Omer, constable of Tripoli, lord of Gogulat (stepson of Raymond III of Tripoli, brother of Raoul).

paragraph: BULLET::::- Balian, was betrothed to Margaret of Brienne but Margaret was seduced by Emperor Frederick II. Balian married Ida de Reynel instead and succeeded his father Reginald as Count of Sidon in 1202.

paragraph: After Reginald's death, Helvis married Guy of Montfort.

paragraph: Section::::Sources.

paragraph: BULLET::::- William of Tyre, "A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea". E. A. Babcock and A. C. Krey, trans. Columbia University Press, 1943.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "De Expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum", translated by James A. Brundage, in "The Crusades: A Documentary Survey". Marquette University Press, 1962.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Chronicle of the Third Crusade, a Translation of "Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi", translated by Helen J. Nicholson. Ashgate, 1997.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Peter W. Edbury, "The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation". Ashgate, 1996.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Bernard Hamilton, "Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem", in "Medieval Women", edited by Derek Baker. Ecclesiastical History Society, 1978

paragraph: BULLET::::- Bernard Hamilton, "The Leper King and his Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem". Cambridge University Press, 2000.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Hans Eberhard Mayer, "The Beginnings of King Amalric of Jerusalem", in B. Z. Kedar (ed.), "The Horns of Hattin", Jerusalem, 1992, pp. 121–35.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Marie-Adélaïde Nielen (ed.),"Lignages d'Outremer", Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1993.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Reinhold Röhricht (ed.), "Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani MXCVII-MCCXCI", and "Additamentum", Berlin, 1893-1904.

description: Crusader noble

wikidata_label: Reginald of Sidon

wikipedia_title: Reginald of Sidon


text:
Lombards
Turin
Raginpert
Bavarian Dynasty
Liutpert
regent
Ansprand
Pavia
Alps
Faroald
duke of Spoleto
Exarchate of Ravenna
papacy
empire
Benevento
Mezzogiorno
Pope John VI
Cottian Alps
Slovene
Venetia
Ansprand
duke of Bavaria
Theudebert
Gaul
Ticino
Iron Crown

categories: 8th-century kings of Italy,Lombard warriors,Lombard kings,8th-century Lombard people,712 deaths,Year of birth unknown,Deaths by drowning,8th-century monarchs in Europe,Bavarian dynasty

paragraph: Aripert II

paragraph: Aripert II (also spelled "Aribert") was the king of the Lombards from 701 to 712. Duke of Turin and son of King Raginpert, and thus a scion of the Bavarian Dynasty, he was associated with the throne as early as 700. He was removed by Liutpert, who reigned from 700 to 702, with the exception of the year 701, when Raginpert seized the throne. After his father's death, he tried to take the throne, too. He defeated Liutpert and the regent Ansprand's men at Pavia and captured the king, whom he later had strangled in his bath. He seized the capital and forced Ansprand over the Alps. He was firmly in power by 703.

paragraph: He thence reigned uninterrupted until his death. His reign was a troubled one. In 703, Faroald, duke of Spoleto, attacked the Exarchate of Ravenna, but Aripert refused to assist him, for he wanted good relations with papacy and empire. He tried nevertheless to assert his authority over Spoleto and Benevento in the Mezzogiorno. He nursed friendship with Pope John VI by donating vast tracts of land in the Cottian Alps to the Holy See. This friendship helped him little, for he had many rebellions to deal with and many Slovene raids into Venetia.

paragraph: In 711, Ansprand, whom he had exiled, returned with a large army from the duke of Bavaria, Theudebert. Many Austrians (the men of Venetia and the east) joined the returning regent and battle was joined by Pavia. Aripert fled to his capital when the tide went against him, but he hoarded the treasures and tried to cross over into Gaul by night. He drowned in the River Ticino and Ansprand was acclaimed sovereign. He was the last Bavarian to wear the Iron Crown.

description: King of the Lombards

wikidata_label: Aripert II

wikipedia_title: Aripert II


text:
Montecassino
Leo of Ostia
Chalandon
Lord Norwich
Counts of Tusculum
Atina, Lazio
Emperor Lothair II
Abbot
Wibald
Patrologia Latina
Leo of Ostia
Chalandon, Ferdinand
Paris
Norwich, John Julius
Longmans
London

categories: Italian chroniclers,Year of birth unknown,12th-century deaths,12th-century Italian writers,12th-century historians,Italian Christian monks,Deacons

paragraph: Peter the Deacon

paragraph: Peter the Deacon () was the librarian of the abbey of Montecassino and continuator of the "Chronicon Monasterii Casinensis", usually called the Montecassino Chronicle in English. The chronicle was originally written by Leo of Ostia. According to both Chalandon and Lord Norwich, Peter is a poor historian and writer, much inferior to Leo.

paragraph: Reputedly a descendant of the Counts of Tusculum, he was offered in 1115 to the monastery of Monte Cassino. About 1127 he was forced to leave the abbey and retired to the neighbouring Atina (Atina, Lazio), because he had supported Abbot Oderisius, who had been deposed by Pope Honorius II. In 1131 he returned to the abbey owing to the death of Pope Honorius. In 1137, he appeared before Emperor Lothair II, then in Italy, on behalf of his monastery. The sovereign was so pleased with him that he appointed him his chaplain and secretary, and would probably have attached him permanently to his person had not Abbot Wibald considered Peter's return necessary to the abbey.

paragraph: In 1131 on his return to Monte Cassino Peter became librarian and keeper of the abbey archives, of which he compiled a cartulary (Registrum Petri Diaconi). Besides editing the existing chronicle of Monte Cassino (and introducing many falsehoods), he wrote several historical works: "De viris illustribus Casinensibus"; "De ortu et obitu justorum Casinensium"; "De Locis sanctis"; Disciplina Casinensis"; "Rhythmus de novissimis diebus".

paragraph: Peter forged, under the name of Gordian, the "Passion of St. Placidus". He is vain and occasionally untruthful, but an entertaining writer. His works are in "Patrologia Latina", CLXXIII, 763-1144.

paragraph: Section::::Sources.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Leo of Ostia. "Chronicon Monasterii Casinensis".

paragraph: BULLET::::- Chalandon, Ferdinand. "Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicilie". Paris, 1906.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Norwich, John Julius. "The Normans in the South 1016-1130". Longmans: London, 1967.

description: Italian monk, librarian and chronicler

wikidata_label: Peter the Deacon

wikipedia_title: Peter the Deacon


text:
Orange County, California
University of California, Los Angeles
Groundlings
Saturday Night Live
39th season
its 42nd
its 44th
Orange County, California
Panorama Elementary School
El Modena High School
Orange
associated student body
homecoming
Batman
University of California, Los Angeles
the Groundlings
Los Angeles
improvisational theater
David Blaine
Mitch Silpa
YouTube
most-viewed videos on the site
Nick Cannon
improvisational comedy
Wild 'n Out
MTV
Showtime
The Underground
NBC
Kath & Kim remake
Cartoon Network
Incredible Crew
Adult Swim
Robot Chicken
TMZ
The Jay Leno Show
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
NBC
Maya & Marty
Maya Rudolph
Martin Short
Kenan Thompson
Saturday Night Live
39th season
Taran Killam
Brother Nature
season 42
audition
Donald Trump Jr.
Kyle Mooney
Margot Robbie
Bobby Moynihan
Streeter Seidell
Tom Hanks
David S. Pumpkins
The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special
Steve Bannon
the Grim Reaper
Matt Duffer
Joseph Dunford
Michael Flynn
Willie Geist
Prince Harry
Pee-Wee Herman
Tim Kaine
Steve King
Greg Lee
Roy Moore
John Oliver
Pitbull
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Paul Ryan
Donald Trump Jr.
Joe Manchin III
Leslie Jones

categories: 1980 births,Comedians from California,American male comedians,American male television actors,American male film actors,Male actors from Orange County, California,American impressionists (entertainers),American male voice actors,21st-century American male actors,UCLA Film School alumni,Living people

paragraph: Mikey Day

paragraph: Michael William Day (born March 20, 1980) is an American actor, comedian and writer. A native of Orange County, California, Day studied theater at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a Groundlings alumnus. He went on to write for several television shows. He joined "Saturday Night Live" as a writer in its 39th season, became a featured player in its 42nd, and was promoted to a repertory player beginning with its 44th.

paragraph: Section::::Early life and education.

paragraph: Day was born March 20, 1980, in Orange County, California. He attended Panorama Elementary School and later graduated from El Modena High School in Orange, where he was involved in the drama program and the associated student body. He wrote comedic sketches for monthly assemblies and made the theme for his homecoming "Batman". Day graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in theater.

paragraph: Section::::Career.

paragraph: Day began his career with the Groundlings, a Los Angeles-based improvisational theater group. With the Groundlings, Day and Michael Naughton wrote and co-starred in "David Blaine Street Magic", a parody of magician David Blaine, portrayed by Mitch Silpa. The video, posted to YouTube, was once one of the most-viewed videos on the site.

paragraph: Day was an original cast member on the Nick Cannon's improvisational comedy series "Wild 'n Out" on MTV. He played various characters in the Groundling stage show "Groundlings, In The Study, With The Candlestick" in early 2009 and directed "Groundlings Space Camp". Day wrote for Showtime's "The Underground" in 2006.

paragraph: Day starred in NBC's "Kath & Kim remake" (2009), wrote for and co-produced the Cartoon Network show "Incredible Crew" (2013), and wrote for Adult Swim's "Robot Chicken" in 2014. Day hosted a recurring segment parodying "TMZ" from 2010 to 2013 on "The Jay Leno Show" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Day was a featured cast member of NBC variety show "Maya & Marty", alongside Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, and Kenan Thompson. He also served as one of the show's co-head writers.

paragraph: Section::::Career.:2013–present: "Saturday Night Live".

paragraph: Day was hired as a writer for "Saturday Night Live" in 2013 for its 39th season. He wrote many sketches featuring cast member & former "Wild 'n Out" co-star Taran Killam, with whom he wrote the screenplay to "Brother Nature" (2016).

paragraph: He was promoted to featured player for season 42. For his audition, he impersonated Donald Trump Jr. and "SNL" actor Kyle Mooney. His debut appearance was in season 42's first episode, October 1, 2016, hosted by Margot Robbie. Bobby Moynihan, Streeter Seidell, and Day wrote the sketch "Haunted Elevator" for the October 22, 2016 episode of "SNL". Starring Tom Hanks as David S. Pumpkins, Day played one of two dancing skeletons in the sketch. The sketch went viral, and he reprised the role for "The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special" (2017).

paragraph: BULLET::::- Celebrity impressions on "Saturday Night Live"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Steve Bannon (dressed as the Grim Reaper)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Matt Duffer

paragraph: BULLET::::- Joseph Dunford

paragraph: BULLET::::- Michael Flynn

paragraph: BULLET::::- Willie Geist

paragraph: BULLET::::- Prince Harry

paragraph: BULLET::::- Pee-Wee Herman

paragraph: BULLET::::- Tim Kaine

paragraph: BULLET::::- Steve King

paragraph: BULLET::::- Greg Lee

paragraph: BULLET::::- Roy Moore

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Oliver

paragraph: BULLET::::- Pitbull

paragraph: BULLET::::- Franklin D. Roosevelt

paragraph: BULLET::::- Paul Ryan

paragraph: BULLET::::- Donald Trump Jr.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Joe Manchin III

paragraph: BULLET::::- Recurring characters on "Saturday Night Live"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Greg Duncan, one half of a couple whose forays into spicing up their sex life leave Greg seriously and comically injured by his shy, yet intimidating wife Shelley Duncan (Leslie Jones)

paragraph: Section::::Personal life.

paragraph: Day is in a relationship with actress Paula Christensen. Their son was born in August 2012.

description: actor

wikidata_label: Mikey Day

wikipedia_title: Mikey Day


text:
Okudaira Sadamasa
Takeda Katsuyori
Kamehime
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Okazaki
Edo period
Ochiai Michihisa
University of Tokyo
Torii Station

categories: Samurai,1540 births,People executed by crucifixion,Executed Japanese people,1575 deaths

paragraph: Torii Suneemon

paragraph: He was a retainer of Okudaira Sadamasa and member of the Nagashino garrison when the fortress came under siege by the forces of Takeda Katsuyori, Kamehime the wife of Sadamasa assisted him in the defense. Torii already renowned for his bravery and known for his knowledge of the surroundings, he volunteered for the extremely dangerous mission of sneaking through the siege lines to request aid from Tokugawa Ieyasu in Okazaki. After successfully warning Tokugawa, however, he was captured by the Takeda on his return to Nagashino.

paragraph: Torii was taken prisoner and directed to shout to his compatriots in the fortress that no help was on the way, and that they should surrender. He instead encouraged the garrison that Tokugawa's army was, in fact, on the way, and that they should keep fighting.

paragraph: There is some dispute as to whether Torii was crucified before or after this proclamation, as well as in the precise details of his execution.

paragraph: Nevertheless, the end result was the same. Although Sune'emon was an ashigaru class warrior, his family was promoted to samurai class and served the Okudaira family till the end of Edo period. One Takeda retainer, Ochiai Michihisa, even used an image of a crucified Torii Suneemon on his flag from then on. The flag is now stored in the University of Tokyo library.

paragraph: In 1923, a railway station opened near Torii's deathplace was named Torii Station.

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Turnbull, Stephen (1998). 'The Samurai Sourcebook'. London: Cassell & Co. pp. 68, 85, 226.

description: Famous for his bravery and incredible exploit at the battle of Nagashino.

wikidata_label: Torii Suneemon

wikipedia_title: Torii Suneemon


text: English

text: pirate

text: Golden Age of Piracy

text: 18th century

text: Westminster

text: London

text: Boston

text: Massachusetts

text: New England

text: Azores

text: Caribbean

text: torturing

text: Arthur Conan Doyle

text: The New York Times

text: Spanish Inquisition

text: Charles Johnson's

text: A General History of the Pyrates

text: Westminster

text: London

text: England

text: illiterate

text: pickpocket

text: footmen

text: House of Commons

text: wig

text: hanged

text: Tyburn

text: burglary

text: Stepney

text: burglary

text: New World

text: Boston

text: Massachusetts

text: press-gang

text: rigger

text: sloop

text: Honduras

text: rum

text: mutiny

text: Francis Farrington Spriggs

text: Rhode Island

text: New York

text: merchantmen

text: Grand Cayman

text: lieutenant

text: George Lowther

text: ton

text: cannon

text: torture

text: brigantine

text: New England

text: Shelburne

text: Nova Scotia

text: Jolly Roger

text: schooner

text: flagship

text: The Boston News-Letter

text: Philip Ashton

text: Roatán

text: John Russell

text: articles

text: false colours

text: St John's

text: Newfoundland

text: man-of-war

text: Conception Bay

text: Grand Banks

text: Azores

text: French

text: Portuguese

text: pink

text: yard arm

text: Canaries

text: Cape Verde

text: Brazil

text: leagues

text: Surinam

text: Charles Harris

text: seaweed

text: barnacle

text: careening

text: dry dock

text: porthole

text: schooner

text: pint

text: ml

text: Tobago

text: currents

text: Grenada

text: quartermaster

text: cutlass

text: moidore

text: broiled

text: Spanish

text: David Cordingly

text: psychopath

text: disembowelings

text: decapitation

text: reprisal

text: torture

text: snow

text: tender

text: bounty

text: Carolinas

text: battle

text: skeleton crew

text: Newport

text: Execution Dock

text: Wapping

text: freedom of the city

text: snuffbox

text: whaling

text: Nantucket

text: North America

text: Block Island

text: Virginia

text: Guinea

text: Daniel Defoe

text: pseudonym

text: National Maritime Museum

text: mutiny

text: Captain Shipton

text: Martinique

text: Edward Teach

text: skeletal figure

text: mizzen

text: code of conduct

text: Royal Navy

text: Articles of War

text: ordonnance

text: Edward "Blackbeard" Teach

text: Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts

text: William Fly

text: Golden Age of Piracy

text: privateer

text: Pirates based in the Caribbean

text: Port Royal

text: Jamaica

text: Spanish Main

text: Stede Bonnet

text: Howard Pyle

text: Arthur Conan Doyle

text: The New York Times

text: postage stamp

text: commissioned

text: Cayman Islands

text: Antigua and Barbuda

text: dollar

text: gold leaf

text: Pirates of the Caribbean ride

text: Disneyland

text: California

text: Sao Feng

text: "Pirates of the Caribbean" films

text: Starz

text: Black Sails

text: Isles of Shoals

text: New Hampshire

text: Nova Scotia

text: treasure hunter

text: List of pirates

text: Piracy in the Caribbean

text: Privateer

text: Cordingly, David

text: Seitz, Don Carlos

text: Roberts, Nancy

text: Agnes Scott College

text: Rediker, Marcus

text: Guide to Edward Low

categories: 17th-century English people,People from colonial Boston,18th-century American people,18th-century English people,People from Westminster,18th-century pirates,1690 births,1724 deaths,English pirates,American pirates

paragraph: Edward Low

paragraph: Edward "Ned" Low (also spelled Lowe or Loe; 16901724) was a notorious English pirate during the latter days of the Golden Age of Piracy, in the early 18th century. Low was born into poverty in Westminster, London, and was a thief from an early age. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts, as a young man. His wife died in childbirth in late 1719. Two years later, he became a pirate, operating off the coasts of New England and the Azores, and in the Caribbean.

paragraph: Low captained a number of ships, usually maintaining a small fleet of three or four. Low and his pirate crews captured at least a hundred ships during his short career, burning most of them. Although he was active for only three years, Low remains notorious as one of the most vicious pirates of the age, with a reputation for violently torturing his victims before murdering them.

paragraph: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described Low as "savage and desperate," and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality". "The New York Times" called him a torturer, whose methods would have "done credit to the ingenuity of the Spanish Inquisition in its darkest days". The circumstances of Low's death, which took place around 1724, have been the subject of much speculation.

paragraph: Section::::Early life.

paragraph: According to Charles Johnson's "A General History of the Pyrates", Edward Low was born in Westminster, London, England, in 1690.

paragraph: He was described as illiterate, having a "quarrelsome nature", and always ready to cheat,

paragraph: running "wild in the streets of his native parish".

paragraph: As a young man, he was said to be a pickpocket and gambler, playing games of chance with the footmen of the nearby House of Commons.

paragraph: Most of his family appear to have been thieves. While young, his brother, Richard, was small for his age and is said to have been carried around in a basket on a friend's back; in a crowd, Richard would snatch the hats and wigs of passers-by. Richard later took to other forms of criminal activity and ended up hanged at Tyburn in 1707 for the burglary of a house in Stepney.

paragraph: Section::::Life in Boston.

paragraph: As he grew older, Low tired of pickpocketing and thievery and turned to burglary. Eventually, he left England, and traveled alone to the New World around 1710. He spent three to four years in various locations, before settling in Boston, Massachusetts. On 12 August 1714, he married Eliza Marble at the First Church of Boston. They had a son, who died when he was an infant, and then a daughter named Elizabeth, born in the winter of 1719.

paragraph: Eliza died in childbirth, leaving Low with his daughter. The loss of his wife had a profound effect on Low: in his later career of piracy, he would often express regret for the daughter he left behind, and refused to press-gang married men into joining his crews. He would also allow women to return to port safely. At first working honestly as a rigger, in early 1722 he joined a gang of twelve men on a sloop headed for Honduras, where they planned to collect a shipment of logs for resale in Boston.

paragraph: Low was employed as a patron, supervising the loading and carrying of the logs. One day, he returned to the ship when hungry, but was told by the captain he would have to wait to eat, and that he and his men would have to be satisfied with a ration of rum. At this, Low "took up a loaded musket and fired at the captain but missed him, [and] shot another poor fellow through the throat".

paragraph: Following this failed mutiny, Low and his friends were forced to leave the boat. A day later, Low led the twelve-man gang—which included Francis Farrington Spriggs, who went on to become a notorious pirate in his own right—in taking over a small sloop off the coast of Rhode Island. Killing one man during the theft, Low and his crew turned pirate, determined "to go in her, make a black Flag, and declare War against all the World."

paragraph: Section::::Piracy.

paragraph: Section::::Piracy.:Lieutenant.

paragraph: Low, using his newly captured ship, lay in wait on the popular shipping route between Boston and New York. Within a few days, he and his crew seized a sloop out of Rhode Island and plundered it. His crew cut the rigging away to prevent the sloop returning too quickly to port to raise the alarm. He then captured a number of unarmed merchantmen near Port Rosemary.

paragraph: Low headed south and began operating in the waters of Grand Cayman, with a period as lieutenant to the established pirate George Lowther, who captained the "Happy Delivery", a 100-ton Rhode Island sloop with eight cannon and ten swivel guns. When she was "destroyed by Indians", Lowther and his crew transferred to a sloop named the "Ranger". Lowther's crew was constantly expanded by desperate sailors willing to join him. Fast acquiring a taste for cruelty, Low taught Spriggs a torture technique which involved tying a victim's hands with rope between their fingers and setting it alight, burning their flesh down to the bones.

paragraph: Following a number of successful raids, Lowther eventually captured a large 6-gun brigantine (named "Rebecca") on 28 May 1722. He gave it to Low to captain. With a crew of 44, Low amicably dissolved his partnership with Lowther.

paragraph: Section::::Piracy.:Pirate captain.

paragraph: In one notable raid in June 1722, Low and his crew attacked thirteen New England fishing vessels sheltering at anchor in Port Roseway, Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Although outnumbered, Low hoisted his Jolly Roger flag and declared that no mercy would be given to the fishermen if any resisted. The fleet submitted and Low's men robbed every vessel. Low chose the largest, an 80-ton schooner which he renamed "The Fancy" and armed with 10 guns, to become his flagship. He sank the other ships of the fleet, and abandoned the "Rebecca".

paragraph: "The Boston News-Letter" of 9 July 1722 published a list of those captured by Low. A number of the fishermen were forced to join Low, including Philip Ashton, who escaped in May 1723 on Roatán Island in the Bay Islands of Honduras, and who wrote a detailed account of life aboard Low's pirate ship. Before Ashton's escape, he had been beaten, whipped, kept in chains, and threatened with death many times - particularly by Low's quartermaster John Russell - as he refused to sign Low's articles and become a pirate.

paragraph: Low's tactics consisted primarily of hoisting false colours and approaching an unsuspecting vessel. Off the coast of St John's, Newfoundland, Low mistook a fully armed man-of-war for a fishing boat, and barely escaped. He moved on to Conception Bay, capturing a number of boats around the Grand Banks southeast of Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic to the Azores. There, he captured a French (or Portuguese—sources differ) pink, a narrow-sterned former man of war, which Low rearmed and refitted as his new flagship, naming it the "Rose Pink". He also captured an English vessel with two Portuguese passengers aboard. Low had his crew hoist them up and drop them back down from the yard arm several times, until they died. He moved on to the Canaries, Cape Verde and then back across to the coast of Brazil, where he was driven back by foul weather.

paragraph: Low abandoned his plans for plundering the rich shipping trade off the coast of Brazil, and moved on to the Caribbean. George Roberts, a mate on the British ship "King Sagamore", recounted a meeting with Low aboard the "Rose Pink". Roberts' ship was captured by Low's fleet, of which he was now styling himself "Commodore".

paragraph: Section::::Piracy.:Capsizing of the "Rose Pink".

paragraph: Forty leagues (120 nautical miles or around 220 km) to the east of Surinam, Low and his fleet of two ships (the "Rose Pink" and the "Fancy", captained by a young Charles Harris) dropped anchor to remove growth such as seaweed and barnacles from the outside of the boats, in a process known as careening, necessary because no dry dock was available to pirates.

paragraph: Still relatively inexperienced, Low ordered too many men to the outside of the boat to work on the buildup, and the "Rose Pink" tipped over too far. The portholes had been left open, and the vessel took on water and sank, with the death of two men. The "Rose Pink" had been carrying most of the provisions, and Low—by now captaining a captured schooner, the "Squirrel"—and his crew were forced to strictly ration their fresh water to half a pint (around 275 ml) per man, per day.

paragraph: Failing to reach their initial destination of Tobago due to light winds and strong currents, Low's depleted fleet made it to Grenada, a French-owned island. Hiding most of his men belowdecks, he was permitted to send men ashore for water. The following day, a French sloop was sent out to investigate, but was captured when Low's men came out from hiding. Low, now commanding the captured sloop (renamed the "Ranger"), gave the schooner "Squirrel" to Spriggs, now his quartermaster, who renamed it the "Delight" before sailing away in the middle of the night with a small crew following a disagreement with Low over the disciplining of one of Spriggs' crew.

paragraph: Section::::Piracy.:Early 1723.

paragraph: Low's new fleet captured many more sloops, including one Low kept, naming it the "Fortune". During a trial on 10 July 1723 for a number of Low's crew, a sailor on board the "Fortune" named John Welland recalled how Low stripped his boat, including gold to the value of £150, then beat him and cut off his ear with a cutlass.

paragraph: Following this, Low's fleet captured a Portuguese ship called the "Nostra Signiora de Victoria" on 25 January 1723. The "Victoria's" captain allowed a bag containing approximately 11,000 gold moidores (worth at the time around £15,000) to fall into the sea rather than see it captured. One of Low's most noted episodes of cruelty followed: in his rage, he slashed off the Portuguese captain's lips with a cutlass, broiled them, and forced the victim to eat them while still hot. He then murdered the remaining crew. Low's own men described him as "a maniac and a brute".

paragraph: One story describes Low burning a French cook alive, saying he was a "greasy fellow who would fry well", and another tells he once killed 53 Spanish captives with his cutlass. Some historians, including David Cordingly, believe this was deliberately done to cultivate a ferocious image. Historian Edward Leslie described Low as a psychopath with a history filled with "mutilations, disembowelings, decapitations, and slaughter".

paragraph: Low, like other pirates of the time, tried to intimidate his victims into surrendering by threatening to kill or torture them. The crew of the targeted ship would hinder the officers from defending the ship, so afraid were they of reprisals. One failed torture session led to one of Low's crew members accidentally cutting him in the mouth. Botched surgery left Low scarred.

paragraph: A snow called the "Unity" was added to the fleet, and used as a tender, but was abandoned during an encounter with a man of war named the "Mermaid". As Low's success increased in the Caribbean, so did his notoriety. Eventually, a bounty was placed on his head, and Low set out for the Azores, again teaming up with Charles Harris. As they terrorised the Azores, the pressure increased from the authorities, who by then had taken special notice of Low, despite the hordes of pirates in operation at the time.

paragraph: Section::::Piracy.:A defeat.

paragraph: Low, Harris and their ships left the Azores for the Carolinas. On 10 June 1723, they suffered a resounding defeat in a battle with , a heavily armed man of war. "Greyhound" had been dispatched under the command of Peter Solgard to hunt down Low and his fleet. Low fled in the "Fancy" with a skeleton crew and £150,000 in gold on board and headed back to the Azores, leaving Harris and the "Ranger" behind.

paragraph: Twenty-five of the crew of the "Ranger", including the ship's doctor, were tried between 10 July and 12 July, with Solgard giving evidence and recounting the battle. The men were hanged for felony, piracy and robbery, near Newport, Rhode Island, on 19 July 1723. Harris was sent back to England and hanged at Execution Dock in Wapping. When Solgard returned to New York, he was presented with the freedom of the city and a gold snuffbox for his part in bringing some of Low's crew to justice.

paragraph: Section::::Piracy.:End of Low's career.

paragraph: Low, still captaining the "Fancy", sailed north. He captured a whaling vessel 80 miles (130 km) out at sea, and in a foul mood following the encounter with the "Greyhound" and the loss of Harris, tortured the captain before shooting him through the head. He set the whaler's crew adrift with no provisions, intending them to starve to death. They were lucky, and reached Nantucket, Massachusetts, after a difficult journey. Remaining off the coast of North America, Low's crew took a fishing boat near Block Island. Low decapitated the ship's master, and sent the crew ashore. When he captured two more fishing boats near Rhode Island, his actions became so savage his crew refused to carry out his orders to torture the fishermen.

paragraph: Heading south again, Low captured a 22-gun French ship and a large Virginian merchant vessel, the "Merry Christmas", in late June 1723. Following the defeat by the "Greyhound", Low became "peculiarly cruel" to his English victims. His fleet of three ships rejoined forces with George Lowther in July. In late 1723, Low and Lowther's fleet captured the "Delight" off the coast of Guinea, mounting fourteen guns on her, with command being given to Spriggs. Two days later, Spriggs and Lowther both abandoned Low, leaving him the "Merry Christmas", by now mounted with 34 guns, as his sole ship.

paragraph: Section::::Piracy.:Fate.

paragraph: There are conflicting reports on the circumstances of Low's death. Captain Charles Johnsonconsidered by some to be Daniel Defoe writing under a pseudonym—stated in his "A General History of the Pyrates", at odds with other sources, that Low and the "Fancy" were last sighted near the Canaries and Guinea. However, at the time of his 1724 book, no further reports had surfaced. He noted one rumour that Low was sailing for Brazil and another that Low's ship sank in a storm with the loss of all hands. The National Maritime Museum in London states that he was never caught, ending his days in Brazil.

paragraph: "The Pirates Own Book" and Ossian both suggest that Low was set adrift without provisions by the crew of the "Merry Christmas", in a mutiny brought about by Low's murdering of a sleeping subordinate following an argument. His crew elected Captain Shipton to command the "Merry Christmas"; they would go on to sail alongside Spriggs in the Caribbean. Low was subsequently rescued by a French ship; when the French authorities learned of his identity he was brought to trial, and was hanged in Martinique in 1724.

paragraph: Section::::Flags.

paragraph: Initially, Low used the same flag as Edward Teach ("Blackbeard"). Later, he used his own flag, a red skeletal figure on a black background, which became notorious. He first flew his own flag in late July 1723. Low also used a green silk flag with a yellow figure of a man blowing a trumpet; this "Green Trumpeter" was hoisted on the mizzen peak to call his fleet's captains to meetings aboard the flagship.

paragraph: Section::::Articles.

paragraph: Low had a set of Articles, a code of conduct and an ironic reference to the Royal Navy's own Articles of War. The Articles listed below are attributed to Low by "The Boston News-Letter". The first eight of these articles are essentially identical to those attributed to Lowther by Charles Johnson.

paragraph: It is likely that both reports are correct and that Low and Lowther shared the same articles, with Low's two extra articles being an "ordonnance", or amendment, adopted after the two crews separated.

paragraph: Section::::Legacy.

paragraph: Edward Low's acts, along with those of other pirates of the period such as Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts, and William Fly, led to a great increase in the military presence to protect shipping lanes, resulting in the effective end of the Golden Age of Piracy.

paragraph: By 1700, the European states had enough troops and ships at their disposal, following the end of a number of wars, to begin better protecting their important colonies in the West Indies and in the Americas, without relying on the aid of privateers. Pirates based in the Caribbean were chased from the seas by a new British squadron based at Port Royal, Jamaica, and a smaller group of Spanish privateers, sailing from the Spanish Main, known as the "Guarda de Costa", or simply the "Guarda".

paragraph: Less is recorded of Low than of other equally prolific pirates such as Teach and Stede Bonnet. Howard Pyle, in an 1880 children's book on pirates, said: "No one stood higher in the trade than [Low], and no one mounted to more lofty altitudes of bloodthirsty and unscrupulous wickedness. 'Tis strange that so little has been written and sung of this man of might, for he was as worthy of story and of song as was Blackbeard." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his work "The Green Flag", described Low as "savage and desperate", and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality". "The New York Times" said "Low and his crew became the terror of the Atlantic, and his depredations were committed on every part of the ocean, from the coast of Brazil to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland".

paragraph: Low has featured on stamps and commemorative currency around the Caribbean. A postage stamp featuring Low was commissioned by the Cayman Islands in 1975, and in 1994 the government of Antigua and Barbuda featured Low and his brigantine, "Rebecca", on a legal tender one hundred-dollar bill made of gold leaf.

paragraph: "Ned Low" is one of the pirates featured on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the Disneyland theme park in California. A duplicate of Low's flag was used for the flag of the fictional pirate Sao Feng in Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. Ned Low was played by Tadhg Murphy in the Starz TV series "Black Sails".

paragraph: Some of Low's haunts, such as the waters around the Isles of Shoals off New Hampshire and Isle Haute in Nova Scotia, attract treasure hunters who seek artifacts in the ships he sank.

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- List of pirates

paragraph: BULLET::::- Piracy in the Caribbean

paragraph: BULLET::::- Privateer

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Flemming, Gregory. "At the Point of a Cutlass: The Pirate Capture, Bold Escape, and Lonely Exile of Philip Ashton." (http://gregflemming.com), ForeEdge (2014)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Cordingly, David. "Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates". Harvest Books (1997)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Seitz, Don Carlos; Gospel, Howard F; Wood, Stephen. "Under the Black Flag: Exploits of the Most Notorious Pirates". Dover Publications (2002)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Roberts, Nancy. "Blackbeard and Other Pirates of the Atlantic Coast". John F. Blair (1993)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Crooker, William S; Roberts, Bartholomew; Kidd, William; Easton, Peter. "Pirates of the North Atlantic". Nimbus Publishing, Halifax (2004)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Scoggins, Rebekah. "Methods of Torture among the Caribbean Pirates". Agnes Scott College (2005)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Rediker, Marcus. "Villains of all Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age". Beacon Publishing (2004)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Whedbee, Charles Harry. "Pirates, Ghosts, and Coastal Lore: the Best of Judge Whedbee". John F. Blair (2004)

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "America's Worst Pirates" from gregflemming.com

paragraph: BULLET::::- Guide to Edward Low

description: pirate

wikidata_label: Edward Low

wikipedia_title: Edward Low


text: Austria

text: Jesuit

text: astronomer

text: Gruemberger

text: Moon

text: Hall in Tirol

text: Prague

text: Vienna

text: Christopher Clavius

text: mathematics

text: Collegio Romano

text: Odo Van Maelcote

text: Galileo

text: telescope

text: Aristotelian

text: Claudio Acquaviva

text: star-charts

text: trigonometric tables

text: censor

text: Mario Bettinus

text: Giuseppe Biancani

text: Galileo's

text: moon

text: China

text: optics

text: List of Jesuit scientists

text: The Galileo Project: Collegio Romano

categories: 1636 deaths,Austrian astronomers,17th-century Jesuits,Austrian Jesuits,Catholic clergy scientists,1561 births,16th-century Jesuits

paragraph: Christoph Grienberger

paragraph: Christoph (Christophorus) Grienberger (also variously spelled Gruemberger, Bamberga, Bamberger, Banbergiera, Gamberger, Ghambergier, Granberger, Panberger) (2 July 1561 – 11 March 1636) was an Austrian Jesuit astronomer, after whom the crater Gruemberger on the Moon is named.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.

paragraph: Born in Hall in Tirol, in 1580 Christoph Grienberger joined the Jesuits. He studied in Prague and Vienna, and subsequently succeeded his tutor, Christopher Clavius, as professor of mathematics at the Collegio Romano in 1612.

paragraph: In 1610, Jesuit and high church officials had turned to Grienberger, as well as Clavius, Paolo Lembo, and Odo Van Maelcote, the other mathematicians on the faculty of the Collegio Romano, for their opinion on the new phenomena Galileo had discovered with his telescope. Grienberger sympathized with Galileo's theory of motion. However, he was asked to defend the Aristotelian view of the universe by Claudio Acquaviva, the Father General of the Jesuits.

paragraph: Grienberger was not a prolific author–in his lifetime, his name was attached only to a thin volume of star-charts and a set of trigonometric tables-but he occupied a post that allowed him to review and evaluate the works of many other authors. As technical censor of all mathematical works written by Jesuit authors, Grienberger often sent authors his own corrections and calculations, which he recommended that they incorporate before their works could be published. His contemporaries acknowledged their debt to him. Mario Bettinus, author of "Apiaria Universae Philosophiae Mathematicae", an encyclopedic collection of mathematical curiosities, includes in this text the following confession: "I have benefited, my Reader, from the mind and industry of the very learned and exceedingly modest man, Grienberger, who, while he would have discovered many marvellous things by himself, preferred to make himself serviceable to other people's inventions and other people's praises".

paragraph: Giuseppe Biancani also corresponded with Grienberger, with whom he discussed his doubts over Galileo's assertion that there were mountains on the moon.

paragraph: Grienberger's lectures in astronomy had also prepared fellow Jesuits for missionary work in China. He also worked in the field of optics.

paragraph: Grienberger is buried at Rome.

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- List of Jesuit scientists

paragraph: BULLET::::- List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics

paragraph: Section::::Sources.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Michael John Gorman, "Mathematics and Modesty in the Society of Jesus: the Problems of Christoph Grienberger (1564-1636)"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Abstract of Franz Daxecker, “The astronomer Christoph Grienberger and the Galilei trial,” Acta Historica Astronomiae, vol. 18, p. 34-39

paragraph: BULLET::::- The Galileo Project: Collegio Romano

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Grienberger's "Catalogus veteres affixarum ..." Rome: 1612. - Full digital facsimile, Linda Hall Library.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Catalogus veteres affixarum Longitudines, ac Latitudines conferens cum novis.Romae, Apud Bartholomaeum Zanettum, MDCXII da www.atlascoelestis.com

description: Austrian astronomer

wikidata_label: Christoph Grienberger

wikipedia_title: Christoph Grienberger


text: Labour Party

text: Member of Parliament

text: Liverpool Exchange

text: Liverpool County Borough Council

text: housing

text: public health

text: social issue

text: Mary Bamber

text: socialist

text: trade union

text: Independent Labour Party

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text: Second World War

text: left-wing

text: councillor

text: 1945 general election

text: Attlee ministry

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text: 1964 general election

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text: infant mortality

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text: St George's Plateau

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text: Warehouse Workers' Union

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text: shilling

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text: Wal Hannington

text: Poor Law relief

text: "Bloody Sunday" in 1911

text: hunger marchers

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text: Fairfield

text: 1929 Liverpool council elections

text: A year later

text: St Anne's

text: workhouse

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text: Aneurin Bevan

text: back-bencher

text: Liverpool Cotton Association

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text: February 1950 general election

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text: Edith Summerskill

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text: Herbert Morrison

text: Mental Health Act 1959

text: May 1955 general election

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text: air pistols

text: obtain fashionable clothes

text: Odessa

text: Welsh community

text: Merionethshire

text: Capel Celyn

text: Plaid Cymru

text: Gwynfor Evans

text: second House of Commons reading

text: Liverpool Lime Street station

text: October 1959 general election

text: Harold Macmillan

text: Trotskyism

text: October 1964 general election

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text: Anfield Crematorium

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text: Lisa Nandy

categories: Industrial Workers of the World members,UK MPs 1966–1970,20th-century women politicians,Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies,1899 births,Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers-sponsored MPs,UK MPs 1951–1955,UK MPs 1959–1964,1970 deaths,UK MPs 1945–1950,Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Liverpool constituencies,English socialists,UK MPs 1950–1951,UK MPs 1955–1959,Councillors in Liverpool,English people of Scottish descent,Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies,UK MPs 1964–1966

paragraph: Bessie Braddock

paragraph: Elizabeth Margaret Braddock ("née" Bamber; 24 September 1899 – 13 November 1970) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Liverpool Exchange division from 1945 to 1970. She was a member of Liverpool County Borough Council from 1930 to 1961. Although she never held office in government, she won a national reputation for her forthright campaigns in connection with housing, public health and other social issues.

paragraph: Braddock inherited much of her campaigning spirit from her mother, Mary Bamber, an early socialist and trade union activist. After some years in the Independent Labour Party (ILP), Braddock joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) on its foundation in 1920, but quickly became disillusioned with the party's dictatorial tendencies. She left the CPGB in 1924 and later joined the Labour Party. Before the Second World War, alongside her husband Jack Braddock she established a reputation as a crusading left-wing councillor, frequently at odds with her party while pursuing an agenda of social reform. During the war she worked in Liverpool's ambulance service, before winning the Exchange division for Labour in the 1945 general election.

paragraph: With her formidable physique and outspoken manner, Braddock was a pugnacious presence in parliament, and a keen supporter of the 1945–51 Attlee ministry's reform agenda, particularly the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. She served on Labour's National Executive Committee between 1947 and 1969. Her combative style led to a brief suspension from parliament in 1952. For most of her parliamentary career she remained a member of Liverpool's council, and was a central figure in the controversy that arose in the 1950s over the city's decision to acquire and flood the Tryweryn Valley in Wales for the construction of a reservoir.

paragraph: Between 1953 and 1957 Braddock served on the Royal Commission for Mental Health which led to the Mental Health Act 1959. From the early 1950s she moved steadily to the right wing of her party, and was increasingly acerbic in her judgements of her former colleagues on the left. When Labour won the 1964 general election she refused office on the grounds of age and health; thereafter her parliamentary contributions dwindled as her health worsened. Towards the end of her life she became Liverpool's first woman freeman. After her death in 1970 her "Guardian" obituarist hailed her as "one of the most distinctive political personalities of the century".

paragraph: Section::::Life.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Early years.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Early years.:Childhood.

paragraph: Elizabeth Bamber was born on 24 September 1899 at 23 Zante Street, in the Everton area of Liverpool, the eldest daughter of Hugh Bamber, a bookbinder, and his wife Mary, "née" Little. Mary had come to Liverpool as a child when her father, a well-to-do Edinburgh lawyer, abandoned his family after his descent into alcoholism and poverty. Liverpool in the late 19th century suffered extremes of deprivation, and had the highest infant mortality rate in the country. Mary became a trade union organiser and campaigner against deplorable social conditions, and established a reputation as an outstanding platform speaker. She was the dominant early influence on her daughter Elizabeth, who formed a lifelong determination to represent and fight for the disadvantaged.

paragraph: In 1902 the Bamber family relocated to Smollett Street in nearby Bootle, one of several moves that caused Elizabeth's formal education to be divided among different schools. Alongside her normal schooling, her political education began at the Marmaduke Street Socialist Sunday School, and through the medium of her mother's campaigning activities. One of Elizabeth's early memories was of the soup kitchen for the destitute which Mary helped to run on St George's Plateau: "I remember the faces of the unemployed when the soup ran out ... I remember blank, hopeless stares, day after day, week after week, all through the hard winter of 1906–07".

paragraph: At the age of eleven Elizabeth left the Sunday School and joined the youth section of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), where she studied socialism alongside a busy programme of social activities. She later described herself at this time as "strong, agile, fond of walking and eating". By this time Mary Bamber was working as an organiser for the Warehouse Workers' Union; Elizabeth assisted her mother, sometimes acting as a steward at meetings. Mother and daughter were both present at St George's Plateau on 13 August 1911, when a baton charge by police and troops broke up a rally in support of Liverpool's striking transport workers. Hundreds were injured, and in the disturbances that followed, two demonstrators were shot dead. The day became enshrined in Liverpool's working-class history as "Bloody Sunday".

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Early years.:ILP years.

paragraph: Elizabeth left school in 1913, and began work filling seed packets for five shillings a week. The job was too monotonous to engage her for long, and after a few months she found a post in the drapery department of the Walton Road Co-operative store. At her mother's insistence she became a member of the Shopworkers' Union. Meanwhile, she attended classes run by the Workers' Educational Association and the Plebs' League: "They told me how the capitalists controlled money, business and the land, and ... hung on to them".

paragraph: Within the group of young socialists who gathered regularly at the ILP's local headquarters, there were three Elizabeths. To avoid confusion, lots were drawn to decide who should be known respectively as Elizabeth, Betty, or Bessie. By this means Elizabeth Bamber took the name Bessie, which she retained for the rest of her life. Among the other ILP activists at Kensington was Sydney Silverman, four years older than Bessie, the son of a poor draper. Silverman was a considerable influence on the youthful Bessie; he would be her future colleague, both in the Liverpool council chamber and the House of Commons. When the First World War began in August 1914, the ILP opposed it as "an appalling crime upon the nations" who had been "stampeded by fear and panic". On the introduction of conscription in 1916, Silverman and others adopted positions of uncompromising pacifism, and were imprisoned. The ILP welcomed news of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and vigorously opposed allied intervention in the civil war that followed it. Bessie played a leading role in a TUC "Hands Off Russia" rally in Liverpool's Sheil Park, where she and others resisted the efforts of the British Empire Union to capture the ILP's red flag.

paragraph: At the end of the war in 1918, Bessie left the Co-op and took a clerical post with the Warehouse Workers' Union. In the course of her ILP activities she had met and befriended John "Jack" Braddock, a wagon builder and union activist with a reputation as a firebrand. He had arrived in Liverpool from Dewsbury in 1915, hoping to emigrate to Canada, but had stayed in the port and immersed himself in left-wing politics and the fight to improve working conditions. He and Bessie became very close; in 1919 they helped Mary Bamber to fight for a Liverpool council seat, as the ILP's candidate in the Everton district. The election campaign was bitter and at times violent, but resulted in Bamber's victory by the slim margin of 13 votes.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Communist activist.

paragraph: By 1920 Mary Bamber, Bessie and Jack Braddock had become disillusioned with the ILP, which seemed to them to lack the necessary radicalism to march with the times. At the time, Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers' Socialist Federation, the British Socialist Party and other socialist organisations were increasingly coordinating their activities, and in 1920 merged to form the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Under Mary Bamber's influence, both Bessie and Jack Braddock left the ILP to become members of the new party. Within the CPGB the young couple became acquainted with Wal Hannington, leader of the National Unemployed Workers Committee Movement. They joined his "work or maintenance" campaign which aimed to raise the levels of Poor Law relief to what they considered a proper subsistence level. The couple did not endear themselves to the CPGB hierarchy when, on egalitarian grounds, they opposed the levels of salary which the party wanted to pay to its full-time officials.

paragraph: In the joint autobiography written with Jack, "The Braddocks" (1963), Bessie cites the formative experience of police violence on "Bloody Sunday" in 1911 as a motivating factor for her CPGB activities. On 12 September 1921, again at St George's Plateau, she attended a rally for the city's jobless, organised by the Liverpool Unemployed Workers' Committee. Again there was police intervention; Jack and Mary Bamber were charged with unlawful assembly and received a token one day's imprisonment. In 1922 Bessie and other party members provided comfort and shelter to Hannington's hunger marchers, as the columns of unemployed passed through Lancashire on their way to London. Bessie combined her party roles—she was treasurer of the Liverpool branch—with her full-time union post; Jack, meanwhile, was only intermittently in work, as his incendiary reputation meant that employers were reluctant to give him a job. He had been living for some time at the Bambers' home when, in February 1922, the couple were married at Brougham Terrace registry office, during the course of a working day. After a brief reception they returned to their respective duties—Bessie to her union job and Jack to his volunteer work for the CPGB.

paragraph: The Braddocks were not comfortable as CPGB members. They objected to the lack of autonomy afforded to local branches by the party's central "Political Bureau", and to what they perceived as the leadership's unquestioning subservience to the Soviet Union. Mary Bamber, after a visit to Russia, opined that there were as many true communists in Liverpool as in Moscow. In 1924, increasingly convinced that communist rule would lead to the enslavement rather than the liberation of workers, the entire leadership of the Liverpool CPGB branch, including both Braddocks, resigned from the party.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Liverpool council.

paragraph: After leaving the CPGB, the Braddocks continued their socialist activism in Liverpool. Jack's role in the Merseyside Council of Action (an impromptu militant action group) during the 1926 General Strike made employers even less willing to engage him. He was rescued by the action of Sir Benjamin Johnson, a liberal-minded industrialist, who lent him the money to purchase a Co-operative Insurance Society agency. Jack and Bessie were now determined to pursue their political aims by democratic methods, and in 1926 they joined the Fairfield ward of the Liverpool Labour Party. In the 1929 Liverpool council elections, Jack was returned unopposed as the Labour councillor for the Fairfield ward. A year later Bessie joined him, elected in the St Anne's ward.

paragraph: St Anne's, one of the most deprived areas of the city, contained a closed workhouse at Brownlow Hill, which the Conservative-controlled council had decided to sell to the Roman Catholic Church as the potential site for a cathedral. The Labour group's official policy was to delay the sale for several years, so that the empty workhouse buildings could be used as temporary housing during slum clearance and rebuilding. The issue split Labour on religious lines; nearly all the Catholic members of the Labour group defied party policy and voted for an immediate sale. Among the rebels was the sitting St Anne's councillor, Olive Hughes. She was thereupon deselected by the St Anne's ward, which chose Bessie as their candidate for the 1930 election. Bessie faced a difficult task, since Hughes chose to stand against her as an Independent Socialist, with the support of leading local Catholics in a ward where the electorate was 85 per cent Catholic. An intense campaign, during which Bessie claimed to have visited every street in the ward, brought her success.

paragraph: This victory did not delay the workhouse's fate; the site was duly sold to the Catholic Church for £110,000, and demolition began in January 1931. Nevertheless, Bessie, who had been appalled by the housing conditions in the ward, helped to instigate a slum clearance campaign which slowly brought improvements. As a member of the council's Port Sanitary and Hospitals Committee, which controlled all the city's hospitals and residential homes for the elderly, Bessie discovered that the hospitals were generally verminous, drably decorated and poorly ventilated, with inadequate cooking facilities. Patients' record-keeping systems were rudimentary, with little or no communication between hospitals. She became involved in the reform, reorganisation and modernisation of many of the city's health facilities, particularly those related to mothers and children. From 1934 she was chairman of the Maternity and Child Welfare subcommittee, and in June 1936 worked with other women's groups to organise a national conference on maternity and child welfare issues.

paragraph: The Labour group on the council remained divided. The group's leader was Luke Hogan (1885–1954), of Irish stock and closely identified with the Catholic caucus. He enjoyed the strong support of around two-thirds of the Labour councillors; the Braddocks, and from 1932 Sydney Silverman, were part of the smaller leftist wing of the group. Clashes between the two sides were frequent, the main contention being the supposed attempts by Hogan and his followers to "catholicise" the local party. When in 1936 Hogan tried to block the renewal of a grant to a local birth control clinic, Bessie led a cross-party rebellion of councillors which ensured that the grant was maintained. She argued that most of the 87 women who had died in childbirth the previous year might have survived with access to contraception.

paragraph: Mostly, Bessie was uncompromising in her attitude towards the council's ruling Conservatives; on one occasion she was ejected from the council chamber by the police, after she had called the Housing Committee chairman a liar and refused the mayor's order to withdraw the remark. She justified this behaviour on the grounds that "if you didn't do something outrageous, nobody would take any notice of you". She had earlier resorted to using a two-foot megaphone in a council meeting, to demand action over housing conditions and slums.

paragraph: Inspired by her colleague Silverman, who in the 1935 general election became MP for Nelson and Colne, Bessie determined to seek a parliamentary career of her own. This ambition contrasted with that of Jack, who turned down the chance to be Labour's candidate in the Everton constituency to concentrate on his local government role. In 1936 Bessie was selected as Labour candidate for Liverpool Exchange. This inner-city division had long been held by the Conservatives, mainly because of a substantial "business vote" which, before the abolition of plural voting in 1948, gave owners of businesses an extra vote in the constituency where their business operated. In the recent election the seat had been held by the Conservative, Sir John Shute, with a majority of 4,412. Bessie was then 36 years old; she would have to wait for nearly 10 years before she could fight her seat, as the general election that would normally have been held in 1939 or 1940 was postponed by the Second World War.

paragraph: In the years immediately before the war Bessie was concerned at the extent of recruitment in the city by the British Union of Fascists. She was outspoken in her attacks on fascist groups, and in her defence of those who attacked their parades. The death of her mother Mary Bamber in June 1938, at the age of 63, was a considerable personal blow to Bessie, and was widely mourned within Liverpool's socialist community.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Second World War.

paragraph: On the outbreak of war in September 1939, Bessie left her union post and joined G Division of the Liverpool Ambulance Service, as a driver. Initially her main job was to train other drivers, mostly young women. She became a section leader and then a deputy leader of G Division, an administrative post that should have kept her at headquarters. However, she records that she drove her ambulance through all the 68 major air raids that struck Liverpool during the war years. It was dangerous work; on a single day, 3 May 1941, 14 drivers lost their lives. Bessie remained with the ambulance service almost until the end of the war in 1945.

paragraph: In 1942 Bessie and Jack moved to what would be their home for the remainder of their lives, a suburban semi-detached house in ZigZag Road, in Liverpool's West Derby district. They remained active members of Liverpool council, and in 1943 Jack became deputy leader of the Labour group. Two years later the Braddocks healed the rift with Hogan by proposing and seconding his appointment as the city's Lord Mayor for the year 1945–46; Jack succeeded him as leader of the Labour group on the council, a post he held until his death in 1963. Bessie became honorary president of the Liverpool Trades Council and Labour Party (LTCLP), the body that had been formed in 1921 when the Liverpool Trades Council merged with the newly formed local Labour Party to form a united labour front.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Labour MP.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Labour MP.:Labour government 1945–51.

paragraph: Despite some opinion polls indicating a Labour lead, most commentators expected that Winston Churchill's prestige would ensure a comfortable Conservative victory in the July 1945 general election. Before polling day, "The Manchester Guardian" surmised that "the chances of Labour sweeping the country and obtaining a clear majority ... are pretty remote". The "News of the World" predicted a working Conservative majority, while in Glasgow a pundit forecast the result as Conservatives 360, Labour 220, Others 60. The expectations of a Labour victory in Liverpool Exchange were not high, but Bessie's chances were boosted by the poor local record of the sitting member, Colonel Shute, and she herself was confident. Defying most forecasts, across the country Labour won 393 seats, and with an overall majority of 146, Clement Attlee formed the first majority Labour government. Bessie won Liverpool Exchange with a majority of 665 from 16,000 votes cast.

paragraph: In an assessment of the new MPs, the "Daily Express" described Bessie as "a character among the Labour women. Very forthright in her speech, strong in her Labour faith ... never hesitates to call a spade a spade". Physically imposing—she admitted to weighing 15 stone (210 pounds, 95 kg)—she made an impact with her maiden speech on 17 October 1945, during a debate on the national housing shortage. After taunting the Conservative opposition by claiming to have "filched" the Exchange seat—"the prize Division of the [Liverpool] Tory Party"—she made an impassioned plea to the new Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, for immediate measures to improve the slum housing conditions in Liverpool, and throughout the country: "Particularly in industrial areas, people are living in flea-ridden, bug-ridden, rat-ridden, lousy hell-holes". She ended her speech with a promise that she and other Labour back-benchers would continue to agitate until the conditions in which many were forced to live, "as a result of having been represented for so long by the Conservative Party", were removed.

paragraph: Bessie's aggressive anti-Toryism was frequently in evidence during her first years in parliament, especially when she could attribute to them the economic miseries of her Liverpool constituents. In a Commons debate on 28 March 1946 she welcomed the government's decision to close the Liverpool Cotton Association, which she denounced as "the bulwark of the Tory administration in Liverpool", nothing more than a group of financiers who gambled with the industry in order to make profits for themselves. On 1 May 1947 "The Manchester Guardian", reporting the chaotic Commons scenes during the divisions following a debate on the nationalisation of the railways, recorded that "Mrs E.M. Braddock ... danced a jig as she moved over to the Opposition benches where she occupied the seat usually used by Mr Churchill." When the "Bolton Evening News" called her performance "nauseating, a sorry degradation of democratic discussion" she sued the newspaper for defamation. She lost the case, and a subsequent appeal was unsuccessful.

paragraph: In 1947 Bessie was elected to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC). At the time she was generally identified with the left wing of the party, and was associated with a grouping known as the "Socialist Fellowship", which espoused a programme of colonial freedom, workers' control and reduced arms expenditure. She resigned from the Fellowship in 1950, along with fellow-MPs Fenner Brockway and Ellis Smith, when it condemned the United Nations intervention in the Korean War. She continued her wholehearted campaigning on behalf of the poorest in the country, pleading with parliament to "remember the queues outside the Poor Relief offices", and castigating the "New Look" fashion of 1948 as wasteful, "the ridiculous whim of idle people". Bessie's fiery reputation did not harm her electorally; in the February 1950 general election, with the Exchange constituency greatly increased by boundary changes, her majority rose to 5,344. Nationally, Labour lost 76 seats, and its parliamentary majority was reduced to five. Attlee's second government was short-lived; in the October 1951 general election Bessie increased her personal majority again, to 6,834, but nationally Labour was defeated by the Conservatives and went into opposition.

paragraph: Outside her political duties Bessie, a keen fan of boxing, accepted the honorary presidency of the Professional Boxers' Association, and was a passionate defender of the sport. Her enthusiasm arose in part from her experiences as a juvenile court magistrate; she believed that the sport fostered character and mutual respect. She was frequently at odds with her parliamentary colleague Edith Summerskill, a physician who wrote the anti-boxing tract "The Ignoble Art", and campaigned for the sport's abolition.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Labour MP.:1950s: Rightward shift.

paragraph: After leaving Socialist Fellowship, Bessie moved steadily towards the centre and right of her party, distancing herself from colleagues with whom she had earlier found common cause. She did not support Aneurin Bevan when he resigned from the government in April 1951 over the introduction of National Health Service charges, and later asserted that, by making dissidence fashionable, Bevan had "weakened the [Labour] National Executive to the point where it could no longer deal effectively with infiltrating Trotskyists and Communists". In 1955 her opposition to the Bevanite faction was such that she supported efforts by Hugh Gaitskell and Herbert Morrison to have Bevan expelled from the party. She regularly attacked the Labour left at party conferences, and in 1952 was involved in scuffles with other delegates after the unexpected success of Bevanite candidates in the NEC elections.

paragraph: Also in 1952, Bessie's volatile temperament caused her to become the first woman member to be suspended from the House of Commons, after she repeatedly protested to the Deputy Speaker for failing to call her during a debate on the textile industry, a matter of great concern to her constituents. In general, however, her forthright attitude won her cross-party respect, and in 1953 she was appointed by Churchill (who had returned as prime minister in 1951) to the Royal Commission on Mental Health, otherwise known as the Percy Commission, whose work led to the Mental Health Act 1959.

paragraph: Bessie's increasingly centrist stance troubled party members in Liverpool Exchange, where the Bevanite faction was generally popular. In 1954 the local party passed a motion requesting that she step down before the next general election. This was rejected by the NEC, who believed that Bessie was a national electoral asset. Shortly before the May 1955 general election the Exchange party tried again, and voted by 40 to 39 to deselect her. Bessie, convinced that this vote had been rigged, appealed to the NEC, who set the decision aside and imposed her on the constituency. These party machinations had no effect on Bessie's popularity with the voters; in the election on 26 May, despite the intervention of a left-wing Independent Socialist candidate, she increased her majority to 7,186. Nevertheless, nationally the Conservatives retained power with an increased parliamentary majority. In the municipal elections held that same month, Labour won control of Liverpool's council for the first time; Jack Braddock became council leader. Bessie gave up her St Anne's ward seat, after 25 years, but remained on the council as a co-opted alderman.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Labour MP.:Campaigns and controversies, 1956–59.

paragraph: In May 1956 Bessie's concerns about the treatment of prisoners in Walton Prison led to an investigation by Sir Godfrey Russell Vick, which revealed numerous instances of violence by members of the prison staff, and brought about reforms. In July that year, during a home affairs debate, Bessie demanded tougher regulations on the supply and licensing of air pistols, which under the existing law were readily available to juveniles. She alarmed the house by brandishing two such pistols which, she explained, she had confiscated in the course of her duties as a juvenile court magistrate. When rebuked by the Deputy Speaker, she replied that she had deliberately used shock tactics, reprising her earlier council chamber argument that "no one takes any notice unless someone does something which is out of order, or is unusual". She also campaigned for the rights of larger women to obtain fashionable clothes; using her substantial 50" – 40" – 50" measurements to advantage, she took part in a fashion show aimed at the larger-than-average woman.

paragraph: In 1956, as part of a Liverpool council delegation, the Braddocks visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of the mayor of Odessa, a city with which Liverpool had informal fraternal links. Her overall impression of the country was of drabness and oppression, with welfare provision generally well below British levels, although she conceded that medical facilities were excellent. Before returning home she informed the mayor of Odessa that "after forty years of socialism ... you haven't achieved half of what we have in Britain".

paragraph: In the later 1950s an issue arose which tarnished the reputations of both Braddocks in the eyes of much of Liverpool's Welsh community and the people of Wales. In 1955 Liverpool council applied for the compulsory purchase of land in the Tryweryn Valley, Merionethshire, North Wales, for the construction of a reservoir to serve Liverpool's increasing needs for water—some 65 million gallons a day. The proposal would mean the flooding of the small village of Capel Celyn, and several farms. On 7 November a deputation led by the Plaid Cymru president Gwynfor Evans sought to address the council in a plea for a change in policy. According to Bessie's biographer Ben Rees, while Evans was speaking, Bessie banged on the table and joined other councillors in insulting Evans and demanding that he "go back to Wales". In July 1957, when the enabling legislation reached its second House of Commons reading, Bessie described the scheme as regional rather than local, and claimed that some parts of Wales would benefit from it. The land to be flooded in the Tryweryn Valley was not, she said, of high agricultural value, and "nothing was done that was not agreed to by the tenants in the area". The bill became law, and construction began in 1959, but protests and demonstrations continued until the reservoir's opening in 1965. The slogan "Cofiwch Dryweryn" ("Remember Tryweryn") was coined by nationalists, says Rees, as "a reminder of Liverpool's greed and lack of sensitivity". In October 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the reservoir's completion, protestors demonstrated around the statue of Bessie at Liverpool Lime Street station.

paragraph: In the October 1959 general election the Conservatives, now led by Harold Macmillan, increased their majority in parliament to 100 seats. In Liverpool Exchange Bessie defied the national swing, and increased her proportion of the vote. On a reduced turnout her personal majority fell slightly, to 6,971.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Labour MP.:Later career, 1960–68.

paragraph: In 1961 Bessie's aldermanic term on Liverpool's council expired. That year, the Conservatives briefly took control of the council, and used their majority to block her reappointment. This ended 31 years' service on the council. In 1963, when Labour regained control, she did not seek re-instatement. The year 1963 saw the publication of "The Braddocks", in which Bessie made a sustained attack on communism and Trotskyism: "The purpose of this book is to bring home to the rank and file how wide that influence is ... unless positive steps are taken by the workers themselves ... democracy will be dead". Reviewing the book for the "Socialist Standard", Lawrence Weidberg thought it gave a useful picture of early 20th century working-class life in Liverpool, but concluded that "from the evidence of this book the Braddocks qualified fully for the role of blind leaders of the blind".

paragraph: On 12 November 1963 Jack Braddock died of a heart attack at the age of 71, while attending an official function in Liverpool. The October 1964 general election brought Labour a narrow victory under Harold Wilson, while in Liverpool Exchange, Bessie achieved her best personal majority to date, 9,746. She did not take a post in the new government; according to "The Guardian" she was offered a job, but declined on the grounds of health and age. Although she fought the next election, in March 1966, and held Liverpool Exchange easily, for the final six years of her parliamentary life she was relatively inactive and often absent through illness. Her last contribution in the House was on 27 January 1969, a question regarding facilities for disabled drivers.

paragraph: Section::::Life.:Final years and death.

paragraph: In 1968 Bessie became vice chairman (and therefore chairman-elect) of the Labour Party. However, in February 1969 she collapsed with exhaustion and was hospitalised. In August she resigned from the NEC on health grounds, thus forgoing her succession to the party chairmanship. In September she announced that she did not intend to contest the next general election, and would retire from politics, a decision which shocked and disappointed her constituents. In April 1970 she was awarded the freedom of the City of Liverpool, the first woman thus honoured. Bessie formally left parliament at the dissolution before the June 1970 general election; on 13 November 1970 she died in Liverpool's Rathbone Hospital, at the age of 71. At her funeral service held a few days later at Anfield Crematorium, in the course of his tribute, Harold Wilson summed her up thus: "She was born to fight for the people of the docks, of the slums, of the factories and in every part of the city where people needed help".

paragraph: Section::::Appraisal.

paragraph: At the time of her death, commentators described Bessie as one of the most notable political personalities of her time, and perhaps the best-known woman in Britain after Queen Elizabeth II. She was especially appreciated in Liverpool, where much of her campaigning zeal for better housing and healthcare was concentrated. Widely known and remembered as "Battling Bessie", thirty years after her death she was placed eighth in a BBC poll of "great Merseysiders".

paragraph: Bessie was renowned for the sharpness of her tongue, either in pursuit of her campaigns or in denouncing her enemies. She frequently used inflammatory, colourful language, once describing an opposing councillor as a "blasted rat", and another time telling the Tory majority that she was willing "to take a machine gun to the lot of you". In contrast to this aggressive public, Bessie's private life was unostentatious. She did not smoke or drink, dressed conventionally and holidayed modestly in Scarborough. Nevertheless, she enjoyed the company of many glamorous friends from the worlds of show business and boxing.

paragraph: Towards perceived adversaries, Bessie showed neither patience nor respect, especially those with whom she had once shared common ground on the far left. Apart from her attacks on Bevan, she displayed particular scorn for the future Labour Party leader Michael Foot, whose practice in the 1950s of writing articles attacking the Labour leadership for right-wing newspapers was, she thought, disloyal. A much reported exchange between her and Churchill has her accusing him of being drunk, and him concurring but adding: "My dear you are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly"—or similar words. There is no reliable evidence that any such exchange took place; despite its popularity, commentators are generally sceptical. According to the columnist Simon Hoggart, similar stories involving other figures had been circulating for years; he concluded: "If it sounds true, if it echoes something we feel about the politician, then it will cling to him or her as if bonded with superglue".

paragraph: In 1984, Radio City, an independent Liverpool radio station, broadcast a 4-part dramatisation of Jack and Bessie Braddock's lives. Bessie Braddock is commemorated in Liverpool by the statue in Lime Street Station, and by a blue plaque erected at her modest home in ZigZag Road. In a 2014 Fabian Society essay the Labour MP Lisa Nandy wrote that Bessie "brought her experiences of life in the slums of Liverpool right into the heart of Westminster. Now, more than ever, we need the voices of working women to be heard in parliament".

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Watch Anglia News from 1962 with Braddock speech recorded in Norfolk

description: British Labour politician

wikidata_label: Bessie Braddock

wikipedia_title: Bessie Braddock


text:
track and field
400 metres hurdles
1936 Summer Olympics
1938 European Athletics Championships
French record
Roubaix
athletics
Jean Bouin
French record
1936 Berlin Olympics
men's 400 metres hurdles
4×400 metres relay
1938 European Athletics Championships
Stade Olympique de Colombes
Paris
Hungarian
József Kovács
gold medal
championship record
Swedish
Bertil von Wachenfeldt
internment
freedom fighters
French Resistance
German occupation of France
Henri Maignan
kinesiotherapist
Orléans
Yves Cros
Prudent Joye Biography

categories: 1980 deaths,Olympic athletes of France,French male hurdlers,Sportspeople from Roubaix,1913 births,European Athletics Championships medalists,Athletes (track and field) at the 1936 Summer Olympics

paragraph: Prudent Joye

paragraph: Prudent Joye (15 December 1913 – 1 November 1980) was a French track and field athlete who specialised in the 400 metres hurdles. He competed for France at the 1936 Summer Olympics and won gold at the 1938 European Athletics Championships. His personal best of 53 seconds was a French record from 1938 until 1946.

paragraph: Section::::Career.

paragraph: Born in Roubaix on 15 December 1913, he began competing at the elite level of athletics in his early twenties and broke Jean Bouin's French record on 23 July 1936, running a time of 53.4 seconds. His first major international competition came soon after when he represented France at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He ran in the heats of the men's 400 metres hurdles and was somewhat unfortunate to be eliminated as his time of 54.1 seconds was the sixth fastest of the round. However, his third-place finish in his heat meant he was not among the twelve athletes who progressed to the semi-finals. He also ran in the 4×400 metres relay team, which was also eliminated in the heats stage. He was virtually unrivalled on the national stage, however, and he won every French 400 m hurdles title from 1936 to 1939.

paragraph: The second major competition of his career was the 1938 European Athletics Championships and he demonstrated fine form in the weeks prior to the event by improving his French record to 53 seconds flat. The men's events were held at the Stade Olympique de Colombes in Paris and Joye was the only athlete to reach the top of the podium for the host nation. He saw off a challenge from Hungarian József Kovács to win the gold medal with a time of 53.1 seconds – just off his national record but a championship record nevertheless. He ran the anchor leg for the French 4×400 m relay team at the championships but he was beaten to the finish by Swedish runner Bertil von Wachenfeldt, just missing out on a medal by finishing fourth.

paragraph: He was captured by German soldiers in 1940 and imprisoned in an internment camp. He broke free soon after and joined a group of freedom fighters in the French Resistance, looking to the overturn of the German occupation of France. He returned to the athletics scene and continued his national success, winning in 1941 and 1943, although Henri Maignan took the title in 1942. He gradually moved towards training other athletes and he received his final selection for the national team in 1945, the year that France returned to international competition.

paragraph: After retiring from athletics, he became a certified kinesiotherapist through the Faculté de Médecine and moved to practice in Orléans. His French record in the 400 m hurdles stood until 1946, when it was beaten by Yves Cros who ran 52.6 seconds. He died on 5 November 1980, leaving behind a wife and five children, and his funeral was held at the Saint-Laurent church of Orléans.

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: BULLET::::- General

paragraph: BULLET::::- Prudent Joye Biography. Sports-reference. Retrieved on 2010-08-21.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Specific

description: French hurdling athlete

wikidata_label: Prudent Joye

wikipedia_title: Prudent Joye


text:
Illinois
lawyer
Union Springs, New York
Dorchester, Dorset
Dorchester, Massachusetts
abolitionist
Underground Railroad
Free Soil Party
Kansas–Nebraska Act
New England Emigrant Aid Company
Kansas Territory
Lawrence, Kansas
Bleeding Kansas
Jim Lane
Bloomington, Illinois
Illinois Republican Party
Lincoln's Lost Speech
high school
Illinois State Normal University
Harvard University
Louis Agassiz
Asa Gray
James Russell Lowell
Francis Bowen
philosophy
political philosophy
read law
law firm
Illinois Central Railroad
Chicago and Alton Railroad
law school
Illinois Wesleyan College
dean
Illinois State Bar Association

categories: 1845 births,Harvard University alumni,Illinois Republicans,1927 deaths,People from Cayuga County, New York,Illinois lawyers,Illinois Wesleyan University faculty

paragraph: Charles L. Capen

paragraph: Charles Laban Capen (1845-1927) was a prominent Illinois lawyer.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.

paragraph: Charles L. Capen was born in Union Springs, New York on January 31, 1845, the son of Luman Capen, a direct descendant of Bernard Capen, who was one of the 140 emigrants who left Dorchester, Dorset to found Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1630. Luman Capen was an ardent abolitionist and maintained a station of the Underground Railroad in Union Springs. A supporter of the short-lived Free Soil Party, in the wake of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Luman Capen answered the call of the New England Emigrant Aid Company for abolitionists to settle in the Kansas Territory. Luman Capen thus moved his family to Lawrence, Kansas, with the Kansas Territory in the middle of the Bleeding Kansas series of events. Shortly after arriving in Lawrence, Luman Capen saw Jim Lane shoot a man dead in the streets of Lawrence. Appalled by this violence, the Capens returned to New York. The family then moved west a second time, initially settling on a farm near Bloomington, Illinois before moving into Bloomington in March 1856. As a boy of twelve, Charles L. Capen attended the founding meeting of the Illinois Republican Party, held in Bloomington, where he heard Lincoln's Lost Speech of May 29, 1856. Charles L. Capen attended the high school of the Illinois State Normal University, beginning in 1862.

paragraph: Capen graduated from high school in 1865, and then enrolled at Harvard University. At Harvard, his teachers included Louis Agassiz, Asa Gray, James Russell Lowell, and Francis Bowen. Under Bowen's tutelage, Capen took special honors in philosophy and political philosophy.

paragraph: After he graduated from Harvard, Capen returned to Bloomington, Illinois, where he read law at the law firm of Williams & Burr. Capen was soon invited into the partnership, which, after the retirement of Burr a short time later, became known as Williams & Capen. Williams died in 1899 and Capen continued practice as a solo practitioner for the next twenty-five years. His firm's most important clients were the Illinois Central Railroad, which it represented for fifty years, and the Chicago and Alton Railroad, which it represented for twenty-five years.

paragraph: In addition to practicing law, Capen taught classes at the law school of Illinois Wesleyan College, and served for a number of years as dean of the law school.

paragraph: Capen was also active in the Illinois State Bar Association, serving as its president 1903-1904.

paragraph: Capen had married Ella Eugenia Briggs in 1875, and together, the couple had two children: Charlotte and Bernard.

paragraph: Capen died at his home in Bloomington on May 21, 1927.

description: American lawyer

wikidata_label: Charles L. Capen

wikipedia_title: Charles L. Capen