Tag: <span>england</span>

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This Hymn was written in 1674 by Thomas Ken. Thomas Ken was a part of the Church of England. The Church of England is very broad in their theology but there are some things that distinguished them. They believed that the Bible contains the core of all Christian faith and thought. They held a high importance to worship but made use of the Book of Common Prayer. This was used by John Wesley, who said concerning the Book of Common Prayer “I believe there is no Liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer of the Church of England.”

I have no doubt that these men were saved, they were just brought up and trained in a system of worship that greatly differs from ours. As can be evidenced by the doctrine in their hymns, both of these writers had an obvious knowledge and an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus.

When these lines were written, the Church of England believed that only Scriptures should be sung. They put a special emphasis on the Psalms and some even thought that it was sinful and even bordering on blasphemy to write new lyrics for church songs or even to sing a hymn. When Thomas Ken wrote the Doxology it originally had ten verses and he published them in his Manual of Prayers for the students at Winchester College. Probably to satisfy the Church of England, he included strict instructions the students were only to use his Manual of Prayers for private devotions in their room and not as hymn singing.

The predominant doctrine of the Doxology is the Doctrine of the Trinity seen clearly in the last line “Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

“Praise God from Whom all blessings flow;

Praise Him, all creatures here below;

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Let us look at these lines and call to mind some scripture from which Thomas Ken may have had in mind as he penned these words. From the line “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Two verses immediately come to mind. John 3:27 “John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven”, And James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Thomas Ken had a very personal walk and was a very devout student of the Word of God, it is very possible that these verses led to the line Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

As we look at the next line, Praise Him, all creatures here below Psalms 150 comes to mind. The last 5 psalms, psalm 146 – 150 are known as the Hallelujah psalms, the doxology of the Hebrew hymnbook. John Phillips calls Psalms 150 “the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ of the Hebrew hymnbook” All of the psalms begin and end with the phrase “Praise ye the LORD”. Psalms 150 verse 2, 3, 4 and 5 all begin with the phrase “Praise him”. Verse 6 is what comes to mind when I think of the second line of the doxology, “Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.

The third line, Praise Him, all creatures here below, brings to mind Psalms 148. Verse 7 declares “Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:” Verse 8 and 9 includes nature in praise, but verse 10 includes “Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl.

The last line of the doxology, “Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost” speaks of the Trinity, the tri-personal existence of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. The Doctrine of the trinity is a truth of Revelation that is revealed in the Scripture. The Doctrine of the Trinity does not imply tritheism, even though there are three separate and distinct persons of the God head, there is but one essence. The Doctrine of the Trinity can be seen in the first chapter of the first book in the Bible, Genesis. Genesis 1:26 says “And God said, Let US make man in OUR image. The word for God is the Hebrew word Elohiym and is plural in its form. Now this does not imply that there is more than one God, rather it sets forth the Doctrine of the Trinity.

The clearest picture of the Trinity is seen in the Baptism of Jesus. All three persons of the Godhead are seen. You see Jesus, the Son as he is baptized, you see the Spirit of God descending like a dove and you hear the voice of the Father as he declares “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” I John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and THESE THREE ARE ONE.

After a close examination of the most known verse of the beloved hymn that we call the Doxology, there is but one conclusion that you can come to, Thomas Ken had a personal walk with the Lord Jesus and accepted, yea, promoted the Doctrine of the Trinity.

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Source by Clint Kerns

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The term “billiard” comes from the French word “bille,” meaning “ball,” referring to a ball and stick game, and the word “art,” representing the art of the game. Billiards has been around for many centuries, originating as lawn games in much of the world over 700 years ago. Presently, it is typical to see a pool table in every bar or tavern you walk into. A number of people even have them in their homes, but it was not always like that. When billiards originated, it was played outdoors as early as the thirteenth century, and from there moved indoors onto tables. Wooden sticks called “maces” were used to shove (rather than stroke) the wooden and ivory billiard balls. Maces were eventually modified into cue sticks due to the difficulty of shots near rails with maces.

Many prominent, historical figures have owned billiard tables, and in many countries. Some of these famous people include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, King James I of England, and Kings Louis III, XIV, XV, and XVI of France. It is even recorded that King Louis XI of France purchased a billiard table as early as 1470. Over time, billiards became more popular in bars, inns, and taverns, therefore becoming more commonplace amongst ordinary people. Below is a brief, historical timeline of how the game of billiards was born.

• 13th century:

o 1200s: Bat and ball lawn games are invented and spread quickly

• 15th century:

o 1470: King Louis XI of France buys his own billiard table

o End 1400’s: billiards moved from outside on grass to inside on a table

• 16th century:

o 1500s: “Table billiards” popularity spreads amongst nobility in France and England

• 17th century:

o 1600s: Billiard play becomes more popular amongst commoners in public places

o 1674: “The Complete Gamester,” one of the first ever how-to billiard publications, was written by Charles Cotton of England

• 18th century:

o 1773: Carambole introduced in France

o 1775: Idea of “One Pocket” developed

o 1797: Cotton and wool replaced with new fabric to improve smoothness and friction

• 19th century:

o 1807: Carombole becomes popular in England, coming to be known as the game of billiards

o 1820s: The mace becomes virtually obsolete, replaced solely by the cue stick

o 1823: The perfection of the leather cue tip greatly increases the use of “spin”

o 1826: John Thurston of England develops the first slate tables, replacing the old wooden ones

o 1845: New rail cushions developed from vulcanized rubber by Goodyear.

o 1850s: A billiard “industry” is born, including companies like Sheraton’s and Gillow

o 1860: John Brunswick joins with the Phelan-Collender Group to form the Brunswick Corporation

o 1860: Claims of billiard tables existing in every State of the Union.

o 1868: Development of new billiard balls out of cellulose nitrate (called “celluloid”), replaces wooden- and ivory-made balls

o 1870: 1st officially recognized English Billiard Championship played between John Roberts and William Cook

o 1892: 1st official standard billiard table is made by Thurston & Co.

• 20th century:

o 1900: Snooker recognized by the Billiards Association

o 1901: 8-Ball invented

o 1910: Straight Pool invented

o 1920: Development of 9-Ball

o 1970s: Cast resin balls replace crystalate and celluloid billiard balls, improving accuracy in size, weight, and shape

Many improvements over the centuries have led billiards and pool into what it is today. Billiard games have been a pastime for years all around the world, and current trends show that it will be sticking around for quite some time.

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Source by Matt Warmann

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Although it may be impossible to accurately state when and where the game of soccer originated, history has shown us glimpses of a game similar to our present day version being played for over 3000 years.

Around the 2nd or 3rd Century BC, it was documented that the Chinese military during the Han Dynasty played a game involving kicking a ball into a small net.

A game similar to soccer was played by the ancient Greeks and Romans but their game could include up to 27 players on a side compared to the modern day game of 11 players to a side.

Soccer became one of the most popular sports of the masses due to its popularity as a war game. A game of “football” which the British called it, was played in the east of England during the 8th Century where the head of a defeated Danish Prince was used as the ball.

During medieval times, villages and towns were pitted against each other in game battles that could take all day. There were no structured rules to abide by and kicking, biting, gouging and punching turned the game into a virtual battle of survival. These matches became so violent that the English authorities made many attempts to have soccer banned.

King Edward III from England passed laws in 1331 to abolish the game and Queen Elizabeth I had a law passed that provided a one week jail sentence for anyone caught playing soccer.

Despite these efforts, the game of soccer became so popular in England over the next few centuries that it evolved as the most popular sport of its time.

At this point, the only shortcoming of the sport was its lack of rules or standards. In 1815, Eton College, a famous English school, established a set of rules to be implemented by other schools, colleges and universities.

A standardized version of these rules were later adopted in 1848 by most of England’s colleges and universities that were known as the Cambridge Rules.

Unfortunately, at this point, there were still two different sets of rules being used. Some colleges favored the Rugby Rules which allowed carrying the ball with your hands, tripping and kicking to the shins. which were contrary to the Cambridge Rules.

In 1863, The Football Association was created by eleven English soccer clubs and schools to establish a single set of rules to be enforced when they played against each other.

The supporters of the Rugby School rules objected to the changes and the two groups split apart. The Football Association later changed the rules in 1869 where they forbade the use of hands, except by the goalie, which led us to the game of soccer as we know it today.

The English still called it a game of “football” because the ball was played primarily with the feet but in the late 18th Century, the word, “soccer”, was first used by a student of Oxford University by the name of Charles Wreford Brown. The students at Oxford were known for using slang where they added “er” to the end of words that they intentionally shortened. The game of Rugby was called “rugger”. Brown shortened the word “association” and added “er” and the term “soccer” was born.

Since the 19th Century the game has evolved to where it is today. It is the World’s Game that is played by more people than any other sport and is universally recognized as the most popular game in sports history.

The World Cup which is held every four years to crown a World Champion draws millions of spectators to the 32 games played and is watched by billions of fans from around the globe thanks to modern day satellite television technology.

The popularity of soccer continues to grow as organized youth soccer programs are getting a young fan base involved at an early age which will fuel its growth for years to come.

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Source by Michael Russell

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Jeremy Paxman in The English: a portrait of a people(1998) ridicules the peroration of John Major’s St George’s Day speech, 1993:

Fifty years from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on country grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and – as George Orwell said – “old maids cycling to holy communion through the morning mist”.

Paxman asks, rhetorically, “Where on earth did all this stuff come from?” Paxman finds it stupid that anyone should equate the real England with the rural England of nostalgic imagination. After dismissing John Major he also has a laugh at another Prime Minister, when quoting Stanley Baldwin who said in a speech:

To me, England is the country, and the country is England…. The sounds of England, the tinkle of the hammer on the anvil of the country smithy, the corncrake on a dewy morning, the sound of the scythe against the whetstone, and the sight of a plough team coming over the brow of a hill…. the one eternal sight of England.”

Paxman declares that all this was “pure fantasy. There was absolutely nothing eternal about any of these sights or sounds” – pointing out, among other things, that the breeding habits of the corncrake have been destroyed by intensive farming.

True enough. But now we come to Paxman’s main conclusion: that somehow in the collective unconscious of Englishmen there exists another England, “not the country in which the English actually live, but the place they imagine they are living in”.

He seems to think it would be better if our ideal were closer to economic reality. If the population is mainly urban, then, he implies, the soul of the country should be regarded as mainly urban, too. The idea, presumably, is that the soul of a country should reside in, or consist of, or be associated with, what the majority of its people do or are. It is this majoritarian view, applied to the dreams and symbols of a nation, that I call the Paxman fallacy.

It ignores the great truth that souls are (in a spiritual sense) trace elements. Character is a minority thing, a tincture that stains the rest with its special colour.

If you hesitate to agree, try applying the Paxman approach to The Glory That Was Greece. What, to us, is the soul of Ancient Greece? Why do we bother to think about it? Answer: minority things! Its philosophy; its intellects; its democracy. All unique for the time, but a trace element only. Most of Greek thought was irrational. Philosophers were a tiny minority, and, moreover, a minority interest. As for democracy – the famed democracy of Athens – it didn’t last long. Only when the people crowded inside the Long Walls during the Pelopponesian War, did mass democracy really work; otherwise most of the people of Attica were looking after their farms and in no position to turn up to vote in the city. (Quite apart from the fact that women and slaves and metics had no vote anyway.) Yes, it’s dead easy to do a Paxman on Ancient Greece. Easy – but what’s the point?

The Paxman fallacy applies majority weighting to a subject for which that style of thought is inappropriate. It would be more relevant to think pyramidally, as in the diagram of a food chain, which shows the fewest and most complex organisms at the top. That is much better at preserving the notion of significance.

Another way of preserving significance comes from the theology of original sin – the idea that parts of our natures don’t fit properly together. Applying this to nations as well as to individuals, it allows us to understand that the soul may fit ill with the body. We’re not necessarily integrated – either as nations or as individuals. That being so, what we do isn’t always a good guide to what we are.

And anyhow, even on a majoritarian view, Paxman is only right about England if the focus is on “modern” England. (I put “modern” in quotes because every age is “modern” to those that are living in it.) Otherwise, if the majoritarian approach is followed to its logical conclusion, to include a majority of times, you get a very different picture. It becomes no longer credible to set such store by the recent development of Britain as an urban nation. The soul of a land with two thousand years of history must surely not stem from a mere two centuries of its life. For most of our history even town-dwellers lived within easy reach of the countryside, and took it for granted. Who’s to say that big cities will last? Who’s to say that our great population density will still be a fact in 2000 years’ time?

The more you look at them, the more “hard” facts “soften”. The enclosed fields that are so beautiful, the hedges and stone walls, are at first open to the criticism that they are not traditional Merrie England stuff because Merrie England was a time of open fields; but then I seem to remember reading that the open field system was only widespread in some counties, perhaps mainly in the Midlands, and that in other areas, enclosed fields are actually ancient…. Certain some hedgerows are very old. The Paxman style is far from conclusive even in its own terms.

However, my main point is that dreams and visions are facts. Spiritually revealing facts. Consider the criticisms levelled at the tartans and kilts of Scotland. If they were Victorian inventions, so what? Consider the creativity of Sir Walter Scott and how he almost single-handedly gave Scotland its place in the human imagination. If all this stuff resonates, if these ideas succeed in shedding their retrospective glow over Scotland’s past – so as to make the past a build-up to that – well, then they work! Linear time, chronology, aren’t everything. Romantic nineteenth-century inventions are inventions of the truth, eruptions reaching the surface of consciousness, bringing deep, long-maturing visions to the light of day. Almost too late, perhaps; but that’s the way it’s always going to happen.

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Source by Robert Gibson

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Title: Victory

Written by: Susan Cooper

Harback: 196 pages

Ages: 9-12

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

ISBN-10: 1-4169-1477-3

ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-1477-8

Publication: 2006

Both eleven years old, Sam Robbins lives in 1803 and Molly Jennings lives in 2006, but their lives cross an emotional barrier 200 years apart that transforms Molly’s life.

Overcome with the loneliness after the death of her father, Molly Jennings finds herself moving to Connecticut in the United States from her native England when her mother remarries an American man. Desperately trying to find her place in her new family, Molly reluctantly joins her family in an outing to Mystic Seaport. As the rain hinders the trip, Molly and her family wander into a used bookstore for shelter. For reasons unknown to Molly, she is drawn to a grimy old book about Admiral Lord Nelson who is named the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar. Unable to explain her excitement over this find, Molly purchases the book. Soon afterwards, while reading the book, she finds a note about the small piece of flag found with it. Apparently, it is from Lord Nelson’s ship, Victory, and it is the prized possession of a person by the name of Samuel Robbins.

While Molly’s mother tries to make their new home as pleasant as possible, Molly continues to miss her home in England. In an attempt to please Molly, her mother surprises her with a trip to her grandparents in England. While out with her grandfather, they visit the restored Victory ship in Portsmouth, England where strange happenings occur with visions and voices heard only by her. While Molly continues on her own adventure, she makes an exciting connection of her families past.

She learns of the young Sam Robbins, who was kidnapped by the “press gang” at the age of eleven, along with his uncle, and brought into the Royal Navy. Sam finds himself in terrible conditions, having to do the most menial tasks. In spite of this, Sam is a quick learner and eventual loves the sailing life. However, he continues to endure horrors and heartaches beyond his imagination.

The novel switches back and forth from current time to the past in alternating chapters. Molly’s life is told in third person, while Sam’s life is told in first person. While this type of writing can be difficult for the most seasoned author, Susan Cooper expertly takes you on this adventure where you find yourself immersed in the lives of Molly and Sam.

Visit Susan Cooper at: http://www.thelostland.com.

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Source by Donna M. Mcdine

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Soccer, better known as football in Europe (except for Italy where it’s called “calcio”), has become the world’s most popular sport. From China to Mexico and everywhere in between, professional soccer draws crazed crowds, amazing athletes and big business.

Soccer madness overseas

While soccer enjoys a devoted fan base around the globe, none love the so-called “Beautiful Game” with as much ferocity as fans in the England. In fact, footie enthusiasts in England may qualify as fanatics, rather than fans. If you think the crowds at American gridiron football games are passionate, you’d likely describe English soccer spectators as raving lunatics. This reverence explains why 80 percent of the money made from professional soccer is made in England alone.

Americans are finally catching soccer fever

Despite European fervor for the game Americans call soccer, professional soccer is a relatively new venture in the United States. Somehow professional soccer has yet to emerge from the shadows of basketball, baseball and gridiron football here. North American soccer fans will certainly hope the success of Major League Soccer will eventually make soccer the national sport. In fact, in the past twenty years, soccer has become the most popular participatory youth sport in North America.

Youth players from the U.S. head to England for training and pro careers

Inevitably, young players raised in the U.S. and Canada are growing up with a thirst for pro soccer splendor. With pro soccer still in its infancy in their own country, many are turning to study abroad soccer boarding school programs and international soccer training camps. Drawn to the sharp competitive edge of English teams and the unmatched keenness of English fans, most players will prefer to train in England.

Premiership football, the heart of soccer in England

The top teams in Europe play under the English Premiership Professional Football Club. The Premiership, as it is often referred to, is the world’s most profitable football (soccer) league, not to mention the most-watched sporting league in the history of professional sports. Aspiring pro soccer players the world over dream of playing in their midst.

The Premiership takes young international players under its wing

English soccer camps and schools mentored by Premiership teams, such as Blackburn Rovers FC and Bolton Wanderers FC, make this dream a reality for many players. The best of these programs, like those sponsored by EduKick, provide intense pro soccer development courses, as well as cultural exposure and strong high school or university level academics. In addition, soccer students training in England have an excellent chance to be noticed and recruited by The Premiership’s leading teams.

Get in the game!

If you’re a young soccer player, ready to take on the world of professional soccer, England is the place to be. You’ll broaden your cultural horizons, get the world’s finest soccer training, and have a shot at professional soccer glory. You’ve got to admit, that’s a hat trick of epic proportions.

Learn more about English soccer schools and enroll for the upcoming school year at the Edukick Web site.

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Source by Joey Bilotta

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Needs to be General PA’d for KW stuffing in the RB – these are the exact same terms the author uses in the KW box.

The sport of table tennis has a long and storied history. It was most likely derived from a game known as “Royal Tennis” that was played in Europe during medieval times around the 12th century AD. In the 1880’s a form of the game was frequently played by members of England’s upper class as an after dinner social activity. Dinner tables would be turned into playing surfaces, with piles of books being used as the “net” and household items acting as rackets. In 1890, an indoor gaming set was created by David Foster and patented in England. It included table versions of tennis, cricket, and football. In 1891, John Jacques of London released a game called “Gossima”, a game that included paddles, a web-wrapped cork ball, and a net.

The discovery of hollow celluloid balls in England in 1900 by James Gibb ushered in a new era in the tabletop sport’s history. This new type of ball was reported to be the catalyst for the name “Ping Pong” because of the sound it made when it came into contact with the drum paddles in use at the time. In 1901 the name “Ping Pong” was registered as a trade name in England. Popularity of the game was high during this time. The Table Tennis Association and the Ping Pong Association were both formed in England in December of 1901.

As game competition increased, players began to experiment with materials and equipment trying to make the game faster and more entertaining. E.C. Goode from England is credited with placing pebbled rubber on his blade in 1902, the result was more spin on the ball. This small change had the consequence of speeding game-play dramatically. This discovery was the inspiration for the pimpled rubber racket, which was the primary type of table tennis racket used until 1952.

After a few years of intense popularity, the game began to fade away in the vast majority of Europe. A few clusters of die-hard fans remained intact in Eastern Europe. After more than a decade long decline a revival took place in the early 1920’s. During this time the first set of standardized laws for the game were established in England. The International Table Tennis Federation was formed in Berlin in1926 with representatives from Germany, Hungary, England, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, India, Sweden, and Wales as founding members. The ITTF adopted England’s standardized laws for international play. The first international tournament was held in 1926 in Berlin. The ITTF continues to be the governing body of the sport today.

The 1920’s through the 1950’s are known as the Classic Hard Bat Era. This was a time of European Dominance. From 1926 through 1931 Maria Mednyanszky from Hungary was the World Champion for five consecutive years. From 1930 through 1935 Victor Barna of Hungary was the World Champion five times, losing only once, in 1931 to his countryman Miklos Szabadoz. European players dominated the field until 1952 when Jiroji Satoh of Japan, with his sponge-covered racket, became the first non-European player to win a championship. In 1958 the first European Championships were held in Budapest Hungary. The USSR made their first appearance at an international tournament during this time.

The year 1971 started a decade-long reign for Swedish players and the beginning of the end of European Dominance. This era produced such Swedish greats as Stellan Bengtsson, Jan-Ove Waldner, Jörgen Persson, and Peter Karlsson, to name a few. In 1977, the ITTF received official recognition by the International Olympic Committee, enabling them to pursue adding the tabletop sport to the Olympic Program. The ITTF chose not to do so at the time. It would be another eleven years before the game debuted as an Olympic Sport. As it continued to gain popularity around the globe, China began to dominate international competitions and stole the championship reigns from their European counterparts. Their reign at the top of the world rankings has remained consistent to this day.

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Source by Lauren Traveau

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Let’s have a look at the poem. Scroll down and read it first, and then come back to my next sentence. The poet tells us: ‘If I should die, etc.’ to only think of him as some spot in a faraway land, in this case England. It could have been China, the US, the Bahamas, you name it. The point is that it is already far away in time and in place. The soldier is looking back at images and impressions of his youth spent in that far land, England where he was born and lived most of his life. The imagery of his country and his entire existence is almost miraculously receding more and more and yet seems almost palpably close and present: ‘the rich earth’, ‘her flowers’, ‘the rivers’, ‘English air’, and more abstractly: ‘a pulse in the eternal mind’, ‘the thoughts by England given’, ‘dreams happy as her day’, ‘laughter’, ‘gentleness’, ‘hearts at peace’ and all ‘under an English heaven’.

He asks us also: ‘And think, this heart, all evil shed away,’… What could this state of mind be other than the very moment of dying? Although the poem starts with a premonition, and, if this or that should happen, he’s actually describing how he’s taking leave of everything he has known, everything he remembers of England as both he and England are fading away and he’s being buried in the earth where he too shall lie, but not England’s. He describes for us in very poetic ways how life is slowly coming to a standstill, but gently, with happiness and a fond memory of laughter and ease, and where nothing remains in the end but a thought (ours, his?) like a whiff ‘under an English heaven’.

O my dear American poet and critic whose name I shall not mention here, you who have passed away as well and are now also in that far land. I take it you’ve been discussing the true merits of this poem with its maker Rupert Brooke at least once since. When I too take off to that abode someday, I hope to join the conversation.

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke, 1914

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Source by Freddy Niagara Fonseca

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Barbados has been an independent country since November 30, 1966. And yet the “Jewel of the Caribbean” is today still known as “Little England,” partly because no other country ever ruled the island, partly because large sections of its interior are lush and green like England, and partly because of lasting British traditions. Also, the bulk of tourists to the island are from the UK.

Barbados Under British Rule ~ Just the Facts

– The British landed along the west coast of Barbados in the 1600s, although it was the Portuguese who named the island Barbados, “the bearded ones,” for the appearance of the island’s fig trees.

– British settlers grew sugar cane and the largest plantations became very wealthy enterprises.

– The plantations would not have been profitable and productive without the slaves imported from Africa to work them.

– The British Crown saw local political power shift from the early British settlers to, gradually, beginning in the 1930s, the descendants of the slaves.

– Grantley Adams was the first to push for independence from British rule; he began the Barbados Labour Party in 1938 and by 1961 Barbados achieved the status of self-governing autonomy. The Barbados airport is named after this early and influential politician.

– After years of peaceful and democratic progress, Barbados became an independent state within the British Commonwealth on November 30, 1966. Under its constitution, Barbados is a parliamentary democracy modeled on the British system.

Barbados’ Independence Celebration

Each year on November 30 Barbados’ independence is celebrated not unlike America’s on July 4th. Barbados’ birthday begins with a parade in the Garrison Savannah, the former British military installation (and now a leading Caribbean race track and a very pretty grassy area steeped in history). (Actually, the British ran its military operation for all of the Eastern Caribbean from Barbados.)

Having traveled a great deal through the Caribbean, I notice that other countries look at Barbados as the “boring” island. It’s true: both Jamaica and Trinidad, for example, are bigger, bolder, more colorful, and brassier former children of the Crown. No matter; its low crime rate, peaceful politics, and high standard of living, Barbados quite happily accepts its role as the boring one of the lot.

This year, 2009, we celebrated Barbados’ 43rd birthday. Many happy returns!

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Source by Jane Shattuck

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Regency England refers roughly to 1811 to 1820, although the term more broadly includes 1800 to 1830. When George III, stricken by illness, could no longer function, his eldest son, the Prince, became Regent in his stead. “The Regency took its tone from the larger-than-life figure of the Prince of Wales…The age bred a lively underworld of scandal, criminality, gambling and personal notoriety. Embezzlement and fraud flourished then as now. The war against France caused further instability and led to the breakdown of law and order.” (Low, Sutton, p. xxv)

Authors of crime stories, and mysteries–such as myself, must needs delve into the dangerous world of this time. Low says that London, England, “surpassed the rest of the British Isles in crime and vice.” (Low, p. xi) No police force, as such, existed until the Victorian period, adding to this instability. The growth of the underworld had begun in the eighteenth century (Georgian period). In London, Henry Fielding became a salaried Chief Magistrate for Westminster in 1749. He established the Bow Street group, whose men became known as the Bow Street Runners. Henry’s brother, Sir John Fielding, carried on the work, and by the time of the Regency the work of the Runners had expanded considerably.

London embodied a complex world in the Regency. Crime abounded in many forms and areas. From gambling hells frequented by the wealthy, who also used the services of the deminondaines, or better class prostitutes, to the prostitutes who haunted the area of the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theaters, the area of murderers and escaped convicts–crime  held precedence. Dark streets encouraged thieves and pickpockets, (gas lighting was installed on a few streets in Pall Mall in 1807) so that the public was targeted, and gently bred females did not go about at nights without the protection of men. Few from the West End traveled to the East end without good reason, and a fully loaded pistol, or two.

Thieves came from the East End ‘Rookeries,’ or criminal districts such as St. Giles and Whitechapel. In these dens of criminality, ‘flash houses’ flourished. These were numerous pubs haunted by criminals who taught childlren thievery, pickpocketing, burglary and worse crimes. Bribery, extortion, and blackmail were rampant. While the gangland bosses ruled this part of the city, the brothel keepers ruled young, unfortunate women, who found their way to them.

South of the Thames River, the home of wild gin-drinking orgies of prostitutes and drunkards, was the home also, of the ‘Resurrection Men,’ who sold cadavers to surgeons, and were not averse to killing to accomplish it, although grave robbing was their ‘forte.’ The Thames itself, was plied by seamen, called ‘River Men,’ who pilfered warehouses, docks and ships.

All of this crime kept the Bow Street Runners on their toes, since the night watchmen were ineffective. In 1800 the Thames River Police Act was established. In 1805, a Bow Street Horse Patrol of sixty men rode on Hounslow Heath–a notorious center for Highwaymen, who terrorized travelers. Many wanted reform, but Bills put forward were slow coming into effect, so crime continued high until the Victorian period when a Police force came into being. You can see what my heroes and heroines had to deal with as they battled crime.

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Source by Audrey Moorhouse