Ethical Record the Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Ethical Record the Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 107 No. 1 £1.50 Jan-Feb, 2002 THE GENOCIDAL PRIMATE - A NOTE ON HOLOCAUST DAY When one sees how violent mankind has been, both to itself and to other species, it appears that, of the contemporary primate species, we have more in common with the spiteful meat-eating chimp than with the placid, vegetarian gorilla or the recently discovered, furiously promiscuous bonobo chimp. Our ancestors probably wiped out the Neanderthals in the course of their territorial disputes and with the final triumph of homo 'sapiens', rationalisations for genocide began to be invented (see the terrible 1 Sam. 15.3). Science tells us that human behaviour is the outcome of influences working throughout life on a plastic, gene-filled embryo. Now humanists are frequently expected, mistakenly in my view, to have faith in the natural goodness and inevitable progress of mankind. It would be more accurate however to believe in neither goodness nor evil as innate, embodied qualities. To be a humanist, it is sufficient to realise that we are each bound to justify our actions ourselves and, in strict logic, cannot defer our morality to any authority, real or imagined. The complicity of religious authorities in permitting agents of the Nazi genocidal machine to bear the 'Gott mit uns' (God is with Us) badge should be seen as an indelible blot on the ecclesiastical record. Death- camp inmates did well to ask 'Where is our God?' as their co-religionists choked in their Zyklon B 'showers'. To preserve the sentimental notion of a just God, some 'holocaust theologians' even stoop to blaming the victims. On 27 January, Holocaust Day, we remember the genocides which have scarred the C20. The three articles in this issue illustrate the vital part brave and committed individuals can play in endeavouring to alleviate the human condition. WILLIAM DAVIDSON: HERO OF CATO STREET Vidya Anand 3 GARIBALDI: HERO OF ITALIAN LIBERATION Jasper Ridley 10 CARL VON OSSIETZKY - FIGHTER AGAINST FASCISM Ian King 17 SPES AND VISUAL ART: THE WORK OF JOHN ROSSER Malcom Rees 22 VIEWPOINTS:Derek • Hill, Roy Silson 23 EVENTS AT THE ETHICAL SOCIETY 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WCIR 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 7242 8036 website: www.ethicalsoe.org.uk email: [email protected] Officers Chairman of the GC: Terry Mullins Hon. Representative: Don Liversedge Vice Chairman: Malcolm Rees Registrar: Edmund McArthur Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac SPES Staff Administrative Secretary to the Society: Marina Ingham Tel:020 7242 8034 Librarian/Programme Coordinator: Jennifer Jeynes M.Sc. Tel: 020 7242 8037 Lettings Manager: Peter Vlachos M.A. For Hall bookings: Tel: 020 7242 8032 Caretakers' Office: Tel: 020 7242 8033 New Members We are glad to welcome as new members:- Dr. Tanima Dave, London SE21; Dr. Leslie Massey, London SW4; David Osmond, Barnet, Herts and Geoffrey Coulson, Sheffield. VACANCY FOR HON. TREASURER The South Place Ethical Society has a vacancy for the post of Hon. Treasurer. Please contact the Admin. Sec. for further details SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY CONWAY HALL HUMANIST CENTRE 25 Red Lion Square, London WCIR 4RL Reg. Charity No. 251396 Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are: the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in relevant fields. We invite to membership those who reject supernatural creeds and are in sympathy with our aims. At Conway Hall the programme includes Sunday lectures, discussions, evening courses and the renowned South Place Sunday Concerts of chamber music. The Society maintains a Humanist Reference Library. The Society's journal, Ethical Record, is issued ten times a year. Funerals and Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is £18 (fl2 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65). The views expressed in this Journal are not necessarily those of the Society. 2 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2002 WILLIAM DAVIDSON - CARIBBEAN HERO OF CATO STREET Vidya Ana nd Lecture to the Ethical Society, 22 April 2001 The last time I addressed you was on the 16Ist anniversary of the emancipation of the slaves. This battle, although its victory was symbolically enshrined in legislation enacted in 1838, was, like all gains of working and oppressed people, the fruit of tenacious and selfless struggles waged by the abolitionists, men like Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce. Granville Sharpe and many others. Like all those who take a stand for liberty and for what is right, they faced and surmounted the ridicule, venom and worse of those who believed, in their perversity, that the most infamous and wicked cruelty represented a natural and God-given state of affairs that on no account was to be tampered with. Slavery had stirred the conscience of a nation by the publication in 1773, anonymously, of 'A Poetical Epistle Of A Dying Negro'. What ultimately rendered slavery inoperable and futile was the courageous struggles of the slaves themselves, whether in the form of the Haitian revolution of Toussaint I'Ouverture, the indomitable Maroons of Jamaica, or those slaves who used every ounce of their strength and intelligence to find a way to escape from their chains. In the words of an Irish rebel song: Those men who would rather have died than live in the cold chains of bondage. The English Themselves Were Not Free Therefore today, I shall take as my subject the outstanding contribution of a noble, learned and revolutionary son of the Caribbean who did something that was quite extraordinary. One of the bitter ironies of the era of which we speak, that of the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, was that the English themselves were not a free people. The other irony is that it was a Caribbean who played a pivotal role in a heroic attempt to strike a crushing blow against the tyrannical ruling class so that it might be replaced with a genuine classless democracy. William Davidson was a Jamaican born in Kingston in 1786. His father was the Attorney General, a man of considerable legal knowledge, talent and wealth, who sent his son to England at an early age to study law and he was articled to a firm of solicitors in Liverpool. However, he did not find the legal profession to his liking. He was then press-ganged into service on a merchant vessel. Press-ganging was a euphemistic term for kidnapping. Unsuspecting young, physically fit men on their way home from a tavern or some other activity would be overpowered by a gang of men, agents of the Admiralty. Generally, little more would be heard of the victims by their families. They were now 'in the service' and subject to its harsh, unremitting and often lethal discipline. Such was the fate that befell the powerfully built William Davidson and his fellow victims who were forced to serve for a period in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. Following his enforced spell at sea, he again lived for a time in Liverpool, but subsequently moved to Birmingham where he started his own very successful business. Ethica/ Record, Jan-Feb, 2002 3 Following a further move to London. Davidson hired a cottage at 12, Elliot Row, near Lords old cricket ground in Marylebone at an annual rent of £22. A disciple and admirer of Thomas Paine, Davidson joined Marylebone Reading Society, a group of radicals formed in response to the Peterloo massacre, meeting in Davidson's house. According to a contemporary intelligence report, sometimes as many as twenty people were seen entering it. There were such groups all over England. In 1819 in a radical meeting in Smithfield. William Davidson was entrusted to guard the radical banner from capture by the police. It was a black flag with skull and cross bones inscribed with the following words: 'Let us die like men, not be sold like slaves.' Speaking about Davidson, Thislewood recorded that Davidson would have killed right and left if an attempt had been made by the police to seize the banner. It was a time of political ferment and social and political upheaval. A Black Interior Designer While all this was going on, Davidson acquired a decorating business with offices in Haymarket. His skills and his imaginative aesthetic and design sense brought him a lot of work. Just imagine, ladies and gentlemen, a black interior designer being called upon by Lord Harrowby, Lord President of the Council, to decorate his house in Grosvenor Square - another part of our 'hidden history'. This opulent mansion was, by one of those rare coincidences of which history is so fond, the unlikely venue of the famed and revolutionary Cato Street conspiracy. William Davidson was a political visionary whose instinctive revulsion against social cruelty was increasingly influenced by the writings of Thomas Paine and other contemporary radicals. Paine was well known to some of the masterminds of the French Revolution of 1789 and his republican views were much admired by the revolutionaries. It is now widely acknowledged that the anti-monarchical American Revolution also owed much to the teachings of Paine. Davidson also drew liberally from a strong, indigenous revolutionary tradition: the indomitable Maroons and leaders of scores of uprisings which inflicted countless humiliating defeats on the British imperialist armies and the forces of the local plantocracy. The 'new world order', again to borrow a contemporary phrase, of the post- Napoleonic war period was to mark the rise to hegemony of the world's largest and perhaps most ruthless empire.
Recommended publications
  • Chapter VIII Witchcraft As Ma/Efice: Witchcraft Case Studies, the Third Phase of the Welsh Antidote to Witchcraft
    251. Chapter VIII Witchcraft as Ma/efice: Witchcraft Case Studies, The Third Phase of The Welsh Antidote to Witchcraft. Witchcraft as rna/efice cases were concerned specifically with the practice of witchcraft, cases in which a woman was brought to court charged with being a witch, accused of practising rna/efice or premeditated harm. The woman was not bringing a slander case against another. She herself was being brought to court by others who were accusing her of being a witch. Witchcraft as rna/efice cases in early modem Wales were completely different from those witchcraft as words cases lodged in the Courts of Great Sessions, even though they were often in the same county, at a similar time and heard before the same justices of the peace. The main purpose of this chapter is to present case studies of witchcraft as ma/efice trials from the various court circuits in Wales. Witchcraft as rna/efice cases in Wales reflect the general type of early modern witchcraft cases found in other areas of Britain, Europe and America, those with which witchcraft historiography is largely concerned. The few Welsh cases are the only cases where a woman was being accused of witchcraft practices. Given the profound belief system surrounding witches and witchcraft in early modern Wales, the minute number of these cases raises some interesting historical questions about attitudes to witches and ways of dealing with witchcraft. The records of the Courts of Great Sessions1 for Wales contain very few witchcraft as rna/efice cases, sometimes only one per county. The actual number, however, does not detract from the importance of these cases in providing a greater understanding of witchcraft typology for early modern Wales.
    [Show full text]
  • Lady Caroline Lamb and Her Circle
    APPENDIX Lady Caroline Lamb and her Circle Who’s Who Bessborough, Lord (3rd Earl). Frederick Ponsonby. Father of Lady Caroline Lamb. Held title of Lord Duncannon until his father, the 2nd Earl, died in 1793. Bessborough, Lady (Countess). Henrietta Frances Spencer Ponsonby. Mother of Lady Caroline and her three brothers, John, Frederick, and William. With her lover, Granville Leveson-Gower, she also had two other children. Bruce, Michael. Acquaintance of Byron’s who had an affair with Lady Caroline after meeting her in Paris in 1816. Bulwer-Lytton, Edward. Novelist and poet, he developed a youthful crush on Lady Caroline and almost became her lover late in her life. Byron, Lord (6th Baron). George Gordon. Poet and political activist, he had many love affairs, including one with Lady Caroline Lamb in 1812, and died helping the Greek revolutionary movement. Byron, Lady. Anne Isabella (“Annabella”) Milbanke. Wife of Lord Byron and cousin of Lady Caroline’s husband, William Lamb. Canis. (see 5th Duke of Devonshire) Cavendish, Georgiana. (Little G, or G) Lady Caroline Lamb’s cousin, the elder daughter of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Later Lady Morpeth. 294 Lady Caroline Lamb Cavendish, Harriet Elizabeth. (Harryo) Lady Caroline Lamb’s cousin, the younger daughter of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Later Lady Granville. Churchill, Susan Spencer. Illegitimate daughter of Harriet Caroline Spencer, a relative of Lady Caroline’s, who became the ward of William and Lady Caroline Lamb. Colburn, Henry. Publisher of Lady Caroline’s most famous novel, Glenarvon (1816). Colburn ran a very active business that published a great quantity of British women’s fiction of the early nineteenth century.
    [Show full text]
  • On Not Being Tony Harrison: Tradition and the Individual Talent of David Dabydeen
    On Not Being Tony Harrison: Tradition and the Individual Talent of David Dabydeen LEE M.JENKINS ^^)NE OF THE MORE unusual critical responses to T. S. Eliot is surely David Dabydeen's claim that "Eliot is the parent of Carib• bean poetry." Indeed, Dabydeen himself feels the need to qualify his remark before he makes it, when he says that Eliot assumes this parental role "in a peculiar sense" (Grant 211). On a thematic level, much of the work of the British-based Indo-Caribbean poet Dabydeen is to do with absent parents (the poet's actual parents, his parent country of Guyana and the Caribbean parent language, Creole; now living in England, Dabydeen shares with Eliot the sta• tus of metoikos, or resident alien); on a formal level, his poetry is less a quest for origins than it is a turbulent — by turns loving and loathing, respectful and rebellious — relationship with Eliot and other literary progenitors from Homer to Tony Harrison.1 Dabydeen's agon with Eliot is evident from his first collection, Slave Song (1984). The poet's use of Creole in this collection is, on one level, a testament of authenticity and, paradoxically given Dabydeen's tide, a proclamation of emancipation from the influ• ence of Eliot and Western literary tradition: this black vernacular is a language which, despite its "capacity for a savage lyricism" per• mits no level of abstraction, so "you cannot have the Four Quartets in Creole" (Binder 171, 170). Notwithstanding this, the innova• tion of contemporary Black British and Caribbean poetry suggests a certain continuity with Eliot; prior to these poetries, Dabydeen has argued, "the last great innovator in British poetry this century has been T.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction: 'The Radical Ladder'
    Notes Introduction: ‘The Radical Ladder’ 1. The Loyalist; or, Anti- Radical; Consisting of Three Departments: Satyrical, Miscellaneous, and Historical (W. Wright, 1820), iv. 2. Here, it might also mean (if the artist is being subversive), ‘I Have Suffered’, which Caroline and the radicals certainly had; or, it might stand for ‘In hoc signo vinces’ – ‘with this as your standard you shall have vic- tory’, hinting at the odd relationship between this Queen and republican radicals. 3. See Thompson, The Making, 691–6. 4. See Robert Reid, The Peterloo Massacre (Heinemann, 1989), 117–19. 5. Frederick Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as Symbolically Social Act (London: Routledge, 2002), ix. 6. Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1. 7. Clifford Siskin, The Work of Writing: Literature and Social Change in Britain, 1700–1830, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 2. 8. Frank Kermode, The Romantic Image (London: Fontana Press, 1971), 18–19. 9. Anne Janowitz, ‘“A voice from across the Sea”,: Communitarianism at the Limits of Romanticism’, At the Limits of Romanticism: Essays in Cultural, Feminist and Materialist Criticism, ed. Mary A. Favret and Nicola J. Watson (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994), 85. 10. Nigel Leask and Phillip Connell (eds.), Romanticism and Popular Culture in Britain and Ireland, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 7. 11. Gary Dyer, British Satire and the Politics of Style, 1789–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 141. 12. Donald Read, Peterloo: the ‘Massacre’ and its Background (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958), 16. Interestingly, in a letter to The Times newspaper on 26 September 2008 Read wrote: ‘The crowd was certainly gathered to demand democratic reform, but it was in a fes- tive mood.
    [Show full text]
  • CLEANERS SCHER's WINES and LIQUORS KENILWORTH SUPER Milt
    -. s-- \ v • -r' tage Twenty-Four THE CRAWFORD CITIZEN AND CHRONICLE,'. THURSDAY, MAY 11, Cranford Girl Chosen County Band School tration dates set, for June 23 and Floral Degree, Gunvaldsen 9 Cranford Discovers Own Cinderella 24, and actual classes in session • Boost ••' fa 'Miss Cinderella to Open June 26 from June 26 to» August 4. Regu- Bremner Chapter. Order ,of DC- lar concerts have been scheduled • Boost • Bobbie Jnekle of 34 Elizabeth The board of directors" of the Molay, will present floral degi^ CRANFORD Honored for avenue has beenrchosen "Miss for Wednesday evenings during Union County Band and Orchestra the month of'July., ' . '" Wednesday for the Mothers' Circle CRANFORD Cinderella of Union County^ by in the Masonic Temple. Entertain J Elliott Cohen- of the Confection School has approved jts calendar ^Pupils _f rom.. grades, tourJo_ six, DAY LongService Cabinet Corporation of Newark for the 1950 session. - A\l classes junior and senior high, school stu- meat and refreshments will folj Emanuel M. Gunvaldsen of following a talent search through- will be held at the Abraham Clark dents, post-graduates, and adults low. The program will begin a| Kerning avenue, an engineer at put this area in conjunction wifh High School in Roselle with regis-1 are eligible (or admission. 8 p. m. .-'••,. • June 9 • the Western Electric Kearny the showing of.the motion picture, Works, has completed 35 years of 'Cinderella," which' will be at the GARWOOD GRANFORD KENILWO^TH service with the company. A tes- Cranford Theatre on Saturday, timonial luncheon was given in his Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
    [Show full text]
  • The Diabolical Cato-Street Plot’: the Cato Street Conspiracy, 18201
    P a g e | 1 ‘The Diabolical Cato-Street Plot’: The Cato Street Conspiracy, 18201 Dr Richard A Gaunt At around 7.30pm on Wednesday 23rd February 1820, a dozen Bow Street Runners in plain clothes, led by George Thomas Joseph Ruthven (1792-1844), stormed into a 15½ foot by 11 foot hayloft above a small stable on Cato Street, off the Edgware Road in London. Their target was a group of some two dozen armed conspirators, led by Arthur Thistlewood (1774-1820), who were making final preparations to assassinate the British cabinet. The men were to call at the home of Lord Harrowby, the Lord President of the Council, in Grosvenor Square, which was about ten minutes’ walk away. There, they would make pretence of delivering a despatch box, before storming the house and capturing the cabinet, who were expected to dine with Harrowby that evening. The plotters intended this as the first act in an insurrection which would lead to the firing of several buildings across the capital, the seizure of weapons (including at the Artillery Ground in Finsbury), the capture of the Mansion House and the Bank of England, and the Declaration of a Provisional Government. Coming barely a month after the accession of King George IV, the insurrection would be symbolised by the beheading and subsequent public display of the heads of Lord Sidmouth (Home Secretary) and Lord Castlereagh (Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons), two leading members of the increasingly unpopular Tory government.2 The Cato Street Conspiracy, whose bicentenary falls in 2020, is one of the more remarkable episodes in a decade of insurrectionary plots and stillborn revolutions dating back to the Luddite disturbances of 1811 and encompassing the Spa Fields Riot (1816), the March of the Blanketeers (1817), the Pentrich Rebellion (1817) and the Peterloo Massacre (1819).
    [Show full text]
  • Reflections on Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World, C
    Morris, Michael (2013) Atlantic Archipelagos: A Cultural History of Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World, c.1740-1833. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3863/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Atlantic Archipelagos: A Cultural History of Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World, c.1740-1833. Michael Morris Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Department of English Literature School of Critical Studies University of Glasgow September 2012 2 Abstract This thesis, situated between literature, history and memory studies participates in the modern recovery of the long-obscured relations between Scotland and the Caribbean. I develop the suggestion that the Caribbean represents a forgotten lieu de mémoire where Scotland might fruitfully ‘displace’ itself. Thus it examines texts from the Enlightenment to Romantic eras in their historical context and draws out their implications for modern national, multicultural, postcolonial concerns. Theoretically it employs a ‘transnational’ Atlantic Studies perspective that intersects with issues around creolisation, memory studies, and British ‘Four Nations’ history.
    [Show full text]
  • 050804/CAB003 Date: 4 August 2005
    10(A) - 1 Report Number: 050804/CAB003 Date: 4 August 2005 TUNBRIDGE WELLS BOROUGH COUNCIL REQUEST FOR DECISION BY CABINET Part II Report Non Exempt Title and Executive Summary: PROPOSED ENHANCEMENT OF VICTORIA CROSS COMMEMORATIVE GROVE, DUNORLAN PARK This report recommends that the Victoria Cross commemorative grove located in Dunorlan Park be enhanced and that the enhancement project be completed in time for the 400th Anniversary year, 2006. It recommends that a budget of £28,000 be approved for the project and recommends that executive authority for authorising expenditure and action on the project be delegated to a Design Panel comprising the Leader of the Council and the Portfolio Holders for Economic Development & Leisure. This decision cannot be delegated to a Portfolio Holder because it does not fall within the Budget and Policy Framework and therefore requires Cabinet approval. WARD: N/A HEAD OF/DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONAL SERVICES PORTFOLIO: (1) Environment, (2) Contact Officer: John Haynes Extension: 3144 Leisure, (3) Economic Development PRIORITY: (1) Environment, (2) Leisure. RECOMMENDATION: (1) That the Cabinet approve a Victoria Cross Grove (Dunorlan Park) enhancement project.; and (2) That the Cabinet approve and authorise actions (a) to (f) inclusive in paragraph 14 of this report for the purpose of funding the enhancement project and implementing it. Reasons: To authorise and fund the project and to enable its delivery. (Items marked * will be the subject of recommendations by Cabinet to full Council; in the case of other items, Cabinet may make the decision, subject to call-in (Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 13)) 10(A) - 2 Item No.
    [Show full text]
  • 'A Vision of a Thriving Culture and a United People'
    The Chickasaw Times PR SRT STD US POSTAGE Post Office Box 1548 PAID Ada, OK 74821 PERMIT NO 49 STIGLER, OK 74462 Chickasaw Times Vol. LI No. 11 Official publication of the Chickasaw Nation www.chickasawtimes.net November 2016 Seeley Chapel beginnings Upcoming Events ‘A vision of a thriving culture and a united people’ TISHOMINGO, Okla. - Hun- south-central and southeastern Four Seasons Photography dreds of Chickasaws and friends Oklahoma while still providing packed Fletcher Auditorium and water needed to meet the needs Workshop adjacent tents on the campus of of the people of Oklahoma City, Nov. 12, 9:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Murray State College October 1 to many of whom are Chickasaw ARTesian Gallery and Studios hear Gov. Bill Anoatubby deliver and Choctaw.” Sulphur, Okla. the State of the Nation address. Under the agreement, the (580) 622-8040 Delivering his address to an Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations enthusiastic gathering during the will have a meaningful and active Veterans Celebration 56th Chickasaw Nation Annual voice in the management of water Nov. 12-13 Meeting, Gov. Anoatubby traced resources within the boundaries the success of the Chickasaw Na- of the two tribes. Chickasaw Cultural Center Sulphur tion to the vision of those Chick- “This agreement is a win for (580) 622-7130 asaws who met at Seeley Chapel the entire state, because it pro- in 1960. vides a foundation for a deeper That first annual meeting in relationship based on engage- Diabetes Awareness the modern era took place when ment, collaboration and coopera- Community Event the government of the Chickasaw tion and offers the best opportu- Nov.
    [Show full text]
  • JULY 2017 the Third Battle of Ypres Was Launched on 31 July 1917 and Continued Until the Fall of Passchendaele Village on 6 November
    Newsletter Date Volume 1 Issue 1 www.britishlegion.be NEWSLETTER JULY 2017 The Third Battle of Ypres was launched on 31 July 1917 and continued until the fall of Passchendaele village on 6 November. The offensive resulted in gains for the Allies but, as always, what gains were made came at huge cost in human terms. This year’s commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the Third Battle of Ypres will start on 30th July with a public event staged at the Market Square at Ieper after the Last Post Ceremony at the Commonwealth War Grave Commission’s (CWGC) Menin Gate Memorial. On 31st July, a (ticket-only) event will take place in the afternoon at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Tyne Cot Cemetery. INSIDE THIS ISSUE The most effective gas of the First World War was mustard gas. It 1. The Third Battle of Ypres was first used against the Allies in July 1917 prior to the Third Battle of Ypres. Many of those who survived the gas attacks were 2. Chemical warfare during scarred for life. Respiratory disease and failing eyesight were WW1 common post-war afflictions. 3. Air raids against England The main air raids against England started in January 1915. From during WW1 then until the end of WW1 over 50 airship raids were launched on 4. Commemoration at the the United Kingdom. With the development of effective defensive Rebecq Memorial, 24th May measures airship raids became increasingly hazardous, and in 1917 2017 airships were largely replaced by aeroplanes. 5. Acts of Remembrance at On Wednesday, May 24th, 2017, some 250 people including several Hotton & La Roche, 7thMay branch members gathered to pay tribute to the airmen of the 2017 Lancaster JA712-BQ-H of 550 Squadron RAF that crashed near Rebecq, on May 28th, 1944.
    [Show full text]
  • Regency Rabble Rousers: the Impact and Legacy of The
    REGENCY RABBLE ROUSERS: THE IMPACT AND LEGACY OF THE CATO STREET CONSPIRACY by KATHLEEN M. BEESON Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON MAY 2012 Copyright © by Kathleen Beeson 2012 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have been possible without the encouragement, guidance and assistance a number of individuals and institutions, both professional and personal. First, I would like to thank my thesis committee, Dr. Elisabeth A. Cawthon, Dr. Stanley H. Palmer and Dr. Steven G. Reinhardt for their continual guidance, encouragement and enthusiasm over the past two years. Each member has helped me to improve my ability to research and to understand history and each has helped me to complete a thesis that I could not be more proud of. Their guidance has been immeasurably valuable. I would like to thank the entire History department at the University of Texas Arlington for making my experience in graduate school memorable and insightful. I would also like to thank the archivists at the Old Bailey Proceedings Online and the National Archives in Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom for their massive digitization projects. Without these records my thesis would not have been possible. I am eternally grateful. I also extend my deep thanks to Dr. Terry M. Parssinen at the University of Tampa for graciously sharing of his knowledge on the topic of iii the Spenceans and the Cato Street Conspiracy. His enthusiasm was infectious.
    [Show full text]
  • ARMY CADET FORCE ASSOCIATION Minutes of the Annual General
    ARMY CADET FORCE ASSOCIATION Minutes of the Annual General Meeting Held on Saturday 25th November 2017 at 14.00 hours at the Grand Connaught Rooms 61-65 Queen Street London WC2B 5DA Present: Col DI Fuller OBE (Acting Chairman) Vice Chairman ACFA Lt Gen AJN Graham CB CBE President ACFA Col R Ayres Comdt Cheshire ACF Col ME Bennett OBE DL Member Finance Committee Col J Brunt OBE Chairman ACFA Wales and Trustee (outgoing) Col AH Cassidy OBE Chairman ACFA Scotland and Trustee Col K Cockman Member Col AI Denison OBE Trustee Greater London Col S Haughie Comdt Northumbria ACF Col V Jassal Member. Vice Chairman Youth & Cadets North East RFCA Col A Laker Comdt Cleveland ACF Col EJ Mytton Trustee West Midlands Col C Riley ACF National Training Adviser to Regional Command Col RE Stafford-Tolley Chairman ACFA Wales and Trustee (incoming) Col C Tearney Trustee North East Col MV Warnock Chairman ACFA Northern Ireland Lt Col WA Adams Trustee East Midlands and East Anglia Lt Col PA Naysmith Secretary ACFA Wales Lt Col A Sharkey Member and ACFA Hons & Awards Coordinator Maj J Brocklehurst Trustee South East England Maj C Dobson Member Ms A Zukowska Marketing Adviser and Trustee Mr R Walton Director Finance Operations & Training ACFA Ms V McBurney Head of Volunteer Recruitment and Communications ACFA Col MNS Urquhart OBE (Secretary) Chief Executive ACFA In attendance Brig MP Lowe MBE Deputy Commander Cadets Regional Command Mr D Haigh Ministry of Defence Apologies Maj Gen MD Wood CBE Vice President ACFA Maj Gen D McDowell CBE Chairman ACFA Col JA Fogerty Chairman Finance Committee and Trustee Page 1 of 13 Col HMW Williams Trustee North West Lt Col JRC White Legal Adviser and Trustee (outgoing) Cdr G Bushell Director Cadets and Youth Council of RFCAs Mr R Duncan Investment Adviser and Trustee Mr AJ Goodwin Hon.
    [Show full text]