Bell-ringing
The first Christian monks would ring handbells to summon converts to prayer and by the 7th century the abbeys had larger bells […]
Read MoreAuthor: Purple Brolly
My aim is to give a flavour of these precious islands we call 'the UK'. All research is based on a minimum of two public domain sources, usually more.
The Good Parliament of 1376
The Good Parliament of 28 April – 10 July 1376 was followed by the Bad Parliament of 27 January – 2 March […]
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Family Courts
The Family Courts deal with the acrimonious aspects of domestic strife. The judges and lawyers deal with matters that are very sensitive […]
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The adjustable spanner
For Yorkshireman Richard Clyburn (1796/7-1852) to become a consulting engineer in his early 30s, he must have shown impressive manual, technical and […]
Read MoreFor Yorkshireman Richard Clyburn (1796/7-1852) to become a consulting engineer in his early 30s, he must have shown impressive manual, technical and design skills early in life. He had moved down to Gloucestershire and went on to become a partner at Uley Iron Works, manufacturing tools with replaceable parts. The business was then purchased by Henry Reynolds-Moreton, the Earl of Ducie (1802-53) in order to produce new, efficient tools and machinery for his modernised farm.
Another talented engineer there was Edwin Beard Budding (1796-1846), the inventor of the lawnmower. The Earl, Budding and Clyburn worked together to successfully produce a newfangled chaff-cutter, among other implements. Clyburn alone, however, is credited with inventing the adjustable spanner, in 1842 and registering the patent in 1843. This saved time and space, since it replaced the need to select from a whole array of differently-sized fixed spanners. Today it also overcomes the problem of there being two measurement codes ~ imperial and metric.
The rack-and-worm ‘Clyburn spanner’ was available right up to the early 1960s and came in various lengths from 6″ to 24″. The featured photographs show the two styles ~ curved and ‘straight’. The vintage spanner below the drawing is not confirmed as a Clyburn but it is the right shape.
(Top images (top to bottom): 1871 drawing of Clyburn’s curved spanner in Spon’s via Internet Archive Book Images / Public domain & pszz at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Kindertransport
The scheme to remove children under 17 from their homes in pre-WW2 Nazi Germany, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia and bring them to […]
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UK fishing waters
For centuries British fishermen went wherever they knew they could get a plentiful catch and top of the list for many were […]
Read MoreFor centuries British fishermen went wherever they knew they could get a plentiful catch and top of the list for many were the waters around Iceland. However, three vicious ‘cod wars’ between Icelandic and British trawlers broke out between 1958 and 1976 when consumer demand was increasing. Finally, Iceland declared a 12-nautical-mile (nmi.) territorial zone round its coastline and a 200nmi. Icelandic rights zone. The former meant that the first 12nmi. (calculated from low-water mark outwards) came under Icelandic ownership, while the latter meant that permission had to be sought to fish or conduct any other type of economic activity between 12nmi. and 212nmi. distance from the Icelandic shores.
The UK decided to reciprocate for its own waters, since Iceland’s action greatly impacted the British fishing industry. Beginning with the Fishery Limits Act of 1964, a series of laws have been passed which proclaim this same 12nmi. territorial encirclement and a 200nmi. Exclusive Economic Zone, as delineated in pink on the simplified map below:-
(Top image: (Mick Baker)rooster at Flickr.com / CC BY-ND 2.0)
Supertramp
“Oh won’t you sign up your name We’d like to feel you’re acceptable Respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable” ~ The Logical Song […]
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P.G. Wodehouse
Sir P.G. (Pelham Grenville, nicknamed ‘Plum’) Wodehouse (1881-1975), from Surrey, became one of Britain’s best-loved and most accomplished writers. His literary genius […]
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Dinosauria
The first dinosaur bone to be identified as such, albeit 166 years later, was dug up in 1676 on Sir Thomas Pennyston’s […]
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‘Bunty’ and ‘Jackie’
‘Bunty‘ and ‘Jackie‘ magazines were both published weekly by the same company that produced ‘The Beano’ and ‘The Dandy’, namely D.C. Thomson. […]
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Summer Solstice
Sunrise on the day of the Summer Solstice ranges from about 3.35am to 4.45am north to south of the UK, with sunset […]
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Andy Murray
Sir Andrew Barron Murray (1987-) is the UK’s most successful professional tennis player since Oxford-born Tim Henman (1974-) reached the world no.4 […]
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