What is the capital of the england
What is the capital of the england
What Is The Capital Of The United Kingdom?
The London Eye and Big Ben are popular tourist attractions in London.
The capital city of the UK is London, which is also the capital of England. It is situated in the southeast of the United Kingdom on the river Thames. It has a larger population in the United Kingdom of about 8,000,000 people. The city has been a significant human settlement for the last two millennia. London is one of the world’s leading cities in commerce, arts, entertainment, finance, education, fashion, transportation, media, tourism, healthcare, research and development, and professional services. London is the largest financial center in the world, and its metropolitan area is ranked the 6th in the world with the largest GDP. The city of London experiences the most international arrivals making it the most visited city in the world, besides its huge passenger traffic, which has propelled the city to rank as having the largest city airport system in the world. It is the leading investment destination in the world and has an ultra high net worth individuals and more international retailers than any other city in the world. Universities in London form the largest concentration of learning institutions than any other place in Europe. London was the host of 2012 Summer Olympic Games, becoming the first city to host the sporting events three times.
History of the City of London
London was founded at about 50 CE, and it derived its name from word Londinios which is a Celtic word meaning «the bold.» The housing during this time was made of a ditch and an earth ramp with a wooden palisade on top. The growth of London was due to the presence of the vital port with wooden wharves and jetties. The main exported goods were grain and metal while wine, olive oil, silk, and ivory was imported
Economy of London
London Tourism
Transport in London
Transport being the primary economic driver of any other city, London has one of the best transportation systems in the world. The bus, river, and road system are all integrated and use the Oyster card system. The London buses are convenient and cheap to travel around the city. Other methods of transport are London trams and London Underground rail system.
Culture and Religion in UK’s Capital City
London is a melting pot of cultures and there are more than 300 languages spoken in London. The city is widely believed to be the cultural capital of the world. Historically, London was dominated by Christianity, but as the city grew, other religions came up. Currently, 58% of the population are Christians, 16% are Pagans, and 8.5% are Muslims, while the remaining 8.5% consists of Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, and Buddhists.
England
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England, predominant constituent unit of the United Kingdom, occupying more than half of the island of Great Britain.
Outside the British Isles, England is often erroneously considered synonymous with the island of Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) and even with the entire United Kingdom. Despite the political, economic, and cultural legacy that has secured the perpetuation of its name, England no longer officially exists as a governmental or political unit—unlike Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which all have varying degrees of self-government in domestic affairs. It is rare for institutions to operate for England alone. Notable exceptions are the Church of England (Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, including Northern Ireland, have separate branches of the Anglican Communion) and sports associations for cricket, rugby, and football (soccer). In many ways England has seemingly been absorbed within the larger mass of Great Britain since the Act of Union of 1707.
Laced by great rivers and small streams, England is a fertile land, and the generosity of its soil has supported a thriving agricultural economy for millennia. In the early 19th century, England became the epicentre of a worldwide Industrial Revolution and soon the world’s most industrialized country. Drawing resources from every settled continent, cities such as Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool converted raw materials into manufactured goods for a global market, while London, the country’s capital, emerged as one of the world’s preeminent cities and the hub of a political, economic, and cultural network that extended far beyond England’s shores. Today the metropolitan area of London encompasses much of southeastern England and continues to serve as the financial centre of Europe and to be a centre of innovation—particularly in popular culture.
One of the fundamental English characteristics is diversity within a small compass. No place in England is more than 75 miles (120 km) from the sea, and even the farthest points in the country are no more than a day’s journey by road or rail from London. Formed of the union of small Celtic and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms during the early medieval period, England has long comprised several distinct regions, each different in dialect, economy, religion, and disposition; indeed, even today many English people identify themselves by the regions or shires from which they come—e.g., Yorkshire, the West Country, the Midlands—and retain strong ties to those regions even if they live elsewhere. Yet commonalities are more important than these differences, many of which began to disappear in the era after World War II, especially with the transformation of England from a rural into a highly urbanized society. The country’s island location has been of critical importance to the development of the English character, which fosters the seemingly contradictory qualities of candour and reserve along with conformity and eccentricity and which values social harmony and, as is true of many island countries, the good manners that ensure orderly relations in a densely populated landscape.
With the loss of Britain’s vast overseas empire in the mid 20th century, England suffered an identity crisis, and much energy has been devoted to discussions of “Englishness”—that is, not only of just what it means to be English in a country that now has large immigrant populations from many former colonies and that is much more cosmopolitan than insular but also of what it means to be English as opposed to British. While English culture draws on the cultures of the world, it is quite unlike any other, if difficult to identify and define. Of it, English novelist George Orwell, the “revolutionary patriot” who chronicled politics and society in the 1930s and ’40s, remarked in The Lion and the Unicorn (1941):
There is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization.…It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature.
For many, Orwell captured as well as anyone the essence of what Shakespeare called “this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
England is bounded on the north by Scotland; on the west by the Irish Sea, Wales, and the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by the English Channel; and on the east by the North Sea.
Relief
England’s topography is low in elevation but, except in the east, rarely flat. Much of it consists of rolling hillsides, with the highest elevations found in the north, northwest, and southwest. This landscape is based on complex underlying structures that form intricate patterns on England’s geologic map. The oldest sedimentary rocks and some igneous rocks (in isolated hills of granite) are in Cornwall and Devon on the southwestern peninsula, ancient volcanic rocks underlie parts of the Cumbrian Mountains, and the most recent alluvial soils cover the Fens of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk. Between these regions lie bands of sandstones and limestones of different geologic periods, many of them relicts of primeval times when large parts of central and southern England were submerged below warm seas. Geologic forces lifted and folded some of these rocks to form the spine of northern England—the Pennines, which rise to 2,930 feet (893 metres) at Cross Fell. The Cumbrian Mountains, which include the famous Lake District, reach 3,210 feet (978 metres) at Scafell Pike, the highest point in England. Slate covers most of the northern portion of the mountains, and thick beds of lava are found in the southern part. Other sedimentary layers have yielded chains of hills ranging from 965 feet (294 metres) in the North Downs to 1,083 feet (330 metres) in the Cotswolds.
The hills known as the Chilterns, the North York Moors, and the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wolds were rounded into characteristic plateaus with west-facing escarpments during three successive glacial periods of the Pleistocene Epoch (about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago). When the last ice sheet melted, the sea level rose, submerging the land bridge that had connected Great Britain with the European mainland. Deep deposits of sand, gravel, and glacial mud left by the retreating glaciers further altered the landscape. Erosion by rain, river, and tides and subsidence in parts of eastern England subsequently shaped the hills and the coastline. Plateaus of limestone, gritstone, and carboniferous strata are associated with major coalfields, some existing as outcrops on the surface.
The geologic complexity of England is strikingly illustrated in the cliff structure of its shoreline. Along the southern coast from the ancient granite cliffs of Land’s End in the extreme southwest is a succession of sandstones of different colours and limestones of different ages, culminating in the white chalk from the Isle of Wight to Dover. A varied panorama of cliffs, bays, and river estuaries distinguishes the English coastline, which, with its many indentations, is some 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long.
London
London
London, capital of Great Britain, SE England, on both sides of the Thames River. Greater London (1991 pop. 6,378,600), c.620 sq mi (1,610 sq km), consists of the Corporation of the City of London (1991 pop. 4,000), usually called the City, plus 32 boroughs. The City is the old city of London and is the modern city’s commercial center; it is also referred to as the “Square Mile” because of its area. The 12 inner boroughs that surround the City are Westminster, Camden, Islington, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, Lewisham, Southwark, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea. The 20 outer boroughs are Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Havering, Barking and Dagenham, Newham, Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Sutton, Merton, Kingston upon Thames, Richmond upon Thames, Hounslow, Hillingdon, Ealing, Brent, Harrow, Barnet, Haringey, and Enfield. Greater London includes the area of the former county of London, most of the former county of Middlesex, and areas that were formerly in Surrey, Kent, Essex, and Hertfordshire. Each of the boroughs of Greater London elects a council. The City elects a lord mayor (whose residence is the Mansion House), aldermen, and councilmen. Both the City of London and Greater London (not including the City) are ceremonial counties under the Lieutenancies Act.
The Greater London Council administered the larger London area until 1986, when it was abolished by the Thatcher government, making London unique as a world metropolis without a central governing unit. In 1999 the Greater London Authority Act reestablished a single local governing body for the Greater London area, consisting of an elected mayor and the London Assembly. Elections were held in 2000, and Ken Livingstone became Greater London’s first elected mayor.
Economy
London is one of the world’s foremost financial, commercial, industrial, and cultural centers. The Bank of England, Lloyd’s, the stock exchange, and numerous other banks and investment companies have their headquarters there, primarily in the City, but increasingly at Canary Wharf. The financial services sector is a major source of overall employment in London.
London still remains one of the world’s greatest ports. It exports manufactured goods and imports petroleum, tea, wool, raw sugar, timber, butter, metals, and meat. Consumer goods, clothing, precision instruments, jewelry, and stationery are produced, but manufacturing has lost a number of jobs in the once-dominant textile, furniture, printing, and chemical-processing industries as firms have moved outside the area. Engineering and scientific research are also important to the economy, as is tourism. The city is a hub for road, rail, and air (its airports include Heathrow and Gatwick), and it is now linked to the Continent by a high-speed rail line under the English Channel.
Points of Interest
The best-known streets of London are Fleet Street, the Strand, Piccadilly, Whitehall, Pall Mall, Downing Street, and Lombard Street. Bond and Regent streets and Covent Garden are noted for their shops. Buckingham Palace is the royal family’s London residence. Municipal parks include Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent’s Park (which houses the London Zoo), and St. James’s and Green parks. Museums include the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the Wallace Collection, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Saachi Gallery, and the Design Museum. London also has numerous commercial art galleries and plays a major role in the international art market.
The British Library, one of the world’s great reference resources, is located in London. The city is rich in other artistic and cultural activities. Its many theater companies reflect the importance of drama, and it has several world-class orchestras, a well-known opera house, performance halls, and clubs. A working replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre opened in 1997. The Univ. of London is the largest in Great Britain, and there are other universities and colleges in the city. The state-owned BBC (British Broadcasting Company) is headquartered in London, and most of the country’s national newspapers are published there. The New Scotland Yard, synonymous with criminal investigation, is located in the city. The Shard, an elongated pyramidal skyscraper that is one of Europe’s tallest buildings (1,016 ft/309.6 m), is in Southwark. Also on the south bank of the Thames is the London Eye (2000), an enormous ferris wheel and one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions. Sporting events draw large support from Londoners who follow cricket, soccer (at Wembley Stadium), and tennis (including the Wimbledon championship). Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, E London, home of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, is also the site of the AcelorMittal Orbit, a bright-red 35-story-high steel tower.
History
Little is known of London prior to A.D. 61, when, as recorded by the Roman historian Tacitus, the followers of Queen Boadicea rebelled and slaughtered the inhabitants of the Roman fort Londinium. Roman authority was soon restored, and the first city walls were built, remnants of which still exist. After the final withdrawal of the Roman legions in the 5th cent., London was lost in obscurity. Celts, Saxons, and Danes contested the general area, and it was not until 886 that London again emerged as an important town under King Alfred, who rebuilt the defenses against the Danes and gave the city a government.
London put up some resistance to William I in 1066, but he subsequently treated the city well. During his reign the White Tower, the nucleus of the Tower of London, was built just east of the city wall. Under the Normans and Plantagenets (see Great Britain), the city grew commercially and politically and during the reign of Richard I (1189–99) obtained a form of municipal government from which the modern City Corporation developed. In 1215, King John granted the city the right to elect a mayor annually.
The guilds of the Middle Ages gained control of civic affairs and grew sufficiently strong to restrict trade to freemen of the city. The guilds survive today in 80 livery companies, of which members were once the voters in London’s municipal elections. Medieval London saw the foundation of the Inns of Court and the construction of Westminster Abbey. By the 14th cent. London had become the political capital of England. It played no active role in the Wars of the Roses (15th cent.).
The reign of Elizabeth I brought London to a level of great wealth, power, and influence as the undisputed center of England’s Renaissance culture. This was the time of Shakespeare (and the Globe Theatre) and the beginnings of overseas trading companies such as the Muscovy Company. With the advent (1603) of the Stuarts to the throne, the city became involved in struggles with the crown on behalf of its democratic privileges, culminating in the English civil war.
In 1665, the great plague took some 75,000 lives. A great fire in Sept., 1666, lasted five days and virtually destroyed the city. Sir Christopher Wren played a large role in rebuilding the city. He designed more than 51 churches, notably the rebuilt St. Paul’s Cathedral. Other notable churches include the gothic Southwark Cathedral, St. Paul’s Church (1633; designed by Inigo Jones), St. Martin-in-the-Fields (18th cent.), and Westminster Cathedral. Much of the business of London as well as literary and political discussion was transacted in coffeehouses, forerunners of the modern club. Until 1750, when Westminster Bridge was opened, London Bridge, first built in the 10th cent., was the only bridge to span the Thames. Since the 18th cent., several other bridges have been constructed; the Tower Bridge was completed in 1894.
In the 19th cent., London began a period of extraordinary growth. The area of present-day Greater London had about 1.1 million people in 1801; by 1851, the population had increased to 2.7 million, and by 1901 to 6.6 million. During the Victorian era, London acquired tremendous prestige as the capital of the British Empire and as a cultural and intellectual center. Britain’s free political institutions and intellectual atmosphere made London a haven for persons unsafe in their own countries. The Italian Giuseppe Mazzini, the Russian Aleksandr Herzen, and the German Karl Marx were among many politically controversial figures who lived for long periods in London.
Many buildings of central London were destroyed or damaged in air raids during World War II. These include the Guildhall (scene of the lord mayor’s banquets and other public functions); No. 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s residence; the Inns of Court; Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament; St. George’s Cathedral; and many of the great halls of the ancient livery companies. Today there are numerous blocks of new office buildings and districts of apartment dwellings constructed by government authorities. The growth of London in the 20th cent. was extensively planned. One notable feature has been the concept of a “Green Belt” to save certain areas from intensive urban development. In 1982, a tax-free zone in the Docklands in the East End’s Tower Hamlets borough was created to stimulate development. Although the Canary Wharf financial center (with Lloyd’s futuristic building, opened in 1986) was initially slow to fill, it now rivals the City.
London has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, with large groups of immigrants from Commonwealth nations. South Asian, West Indian, African, and Middle Eastern peoples account for much of the immigrant population. The city is the site of one of the largest Hindu temple complexes and the largest Sikh temple outside India; there also are many mosques, including one of the largest in Europe. With the reestablishment of the city’s central government (2000), London built its egg-shaped City Hall (2002), on the south bank of the Thames opposite the Tower of London. In 2016 Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants, was elected mayor; he became the first Muslim mayor of a capital city in the European Union. The city was the site of the 1908, 1948, and 2012 summer Olympic games.
Bibliography
See R. Porter, London: A Social History (1998); S. Inwood, A History of London (1999); P. Ackroyd, London: The Biography (2001); B. Weinreb et al., ed., The London Encyclopedia (3d ed., 2008); P. Barber, London: A History in Maps (2012); R. O. Bucholz and J. P. Ward, London: A Social and Cultural History, 1550–1750 (2012); C. L. Corton, London Fog (2015).
London
London
(Greater London), capital of Great Britain and the nation’s principal economic, political, and cultural center. One of the world’s most densely populated cities, it is situated in the center of the London basin (at an elevation of 5 m above sea level) on a plain rimmed on the north, east, and south by chalk cuesta ridges. The city lies along both banks of the estuary of the Thames River, which empties into the North Sea. The climate is oceanic, with mild winters and cool summers. The mean temperature in the coldest month (January) is 5.3°C, and in the warmest month (July), 18.9°C. Annual precipitation averages about 645 mm. Frequent fogs combine with air pollution to form smog.
Since 1964, London proper together with the surrounding suburbs has constituted a separate administrative area known as Greater London, comprising 32 London boroughs and the City. Greater London, which absorbed parts of adjacent counties, has an area of 1,800 sq km and a population of 7.4 million (1971).
Approximately one-seventh of the population of Great Britain is concentrated within the conurbation of Greater London. The conurbation continues to expand within the suburban zone, referred to as the metropolitan area. Eight new satellite towns were built within the metropolitan area after World War II: Basildon, Bracknell, Crawley, Stevenage, Welwyn Garden City, Harlow, Hatfield, and Hemel Hempstead. They were intended for the resettlement of part of the population and for the relocation of industrial enterprises from overcrowded districts in the conurbation. The population growth rate in these towns has been the highest in the country; the population increased by 53 percent between 1951 and 1971. At the same time, the population of Greater London has been declining since the middle of the 20th century, falling from 8.2 million in 1951 to 7.8 million in 1961. One-tenth of all immigrants to Britain live here. Greater London accounts for one-sixth of the nation’s work force (4.3 million in 1966), one-sixth of all industrial workers, and a considerable number of those employed in transport and communications (more than one-fourth), financial institutions and banks (more than two-fifths), commerce (more than one-fifth), and services (one-fifth).
Administration. The overall administrative body is the Greater London Council, consisting of 100 elected councilors and up to 16 aldermen, co-opted by the Council. Councilors are elected for three years and aldermen for six (every three years half the aldermen are replaced). The Council annually elects a chairman and vice-chairman and forms standing committees, which supervise the work of departments and other subdivisions of the Council’s administrative apparatus.
The London boroughs and the City have their own governing bodies. The councils of the boroughs also consist of elected councilors and aldermen. The focal government of the City consists of three subdivisions—the common hall, the court of aldermen, and the common council. The common hall includes the lord mayor, sheriffs, aldermen, and approximately 70 “guild elders,” registered as freemen (representatives of various companies based in the City). Aldermen and councilors are elected from 25 wards by permanent residents and taxpayers of the City; aldermen are elected for life and councilors for one year. The common council comprises the lord mayor of the City, elected by the court of aldermen, and 159 councilors.
Most administrative functions are carried out by the Greater London Council and by the borough councils. Some functions, for example, fire fighting and ambulance service, are wholly within the jurisdiction of the Greater London Council; the borough councils are responsible for such matters as social welfare, libraries, and health inspection. Special agencies not subject to city authorities have been created for management of the water supply and the port. The metropolitan police are under the direct control of the home secretary.
History. A Celtic settlement apparently existed on the territory of modern London prior to the Roman conquest of Britain (c. A.D. 40-70). Under Roman rule London was first a military camp and later a river port and seaport. In the mid-fourth century it became an important political center of Roman Britain. The city was destroyed during the Anglo-Saxon conquest (fifth and sixth centuries) but was soon restored, becoming an important commercial and political center by the early seventh century. On the eve of the Norman conquest of England, London’s population numbered about 20,000. Trade ties were expanded after the Norman conquest (1066), and craft and merchants’ guilds appeared. By the end of the 11th century London had become the capital of England, and it was granted self-government in the late 12th century.
Medieval London was frequently the scene of disorders and revolts of the townspeople against the rich urban elite and the royal administration, for example, in 1196. Some of the craftsmen and urban poor joined the revolts of Wat Tyler (1381) and Jack Cade (1450). In the mid-15th century London’s population totaled about 50,000; in the mid-16th century it rose to 80,000, and in 1666, to about 500,000. Large trading companies were founded in the 16th century with the development of capitalist relations, and the London exchange opened in 1571. The port of London, which handled two-thirds of England’s trade in the 17th century, began to acquire worldwide importance. The city’s popular masses played a major role in the English Civil War of the 17th century.
The industrial revolution and the conversion of Great Britain into a major industrial, trade, and colonial power helped make London the world’s largest seaport and trade and finance center from the late 18th century. During the industrial revolution the center of British industry shifted to regions rich in coal and iron ore. By the early 19th century London’s population exceeded 1 million, and in 1881 it totaled 4.7 million. At the outset of the era of imperialism New York displaced London as the most important seaport and trade and finance center. During and after World War I new industries developed, including metalworking, machine building, automotive, aviation, and electrical engineering. During World War II, especially in 1940 and the first half of 1941, London suffered numerous air raids in which 30,000 persons were killed and more than 50,000 wounded. This period saw the reorganization of London’s industry; war industries, particularly aviation, were greatly expanded, as were the chemical and other sectors.
London has been an important center of the workers’ movement. The London Corresponding Society was founded in 1792, and the city was one of the chief centers of the Chartist movement. The First and Second Congresses of the League of Communists were held in London in 1847, and the First International was founded here in 1864. On May 4, 1890, the first Sunday of the month, the workers of London held the first demonstration in commemoration of the Day of International Solidarity of Working People. In 1900 the Labour Party was founded in London.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries revolutionary exiles from many countries continued their work in London. K. Marx lived and worked here from 1849 to 1883 (his grave and monu ent are in Highgate Cemetery), and F. Engels lived here from 1870 to 1895. Other revolutionaries who found refuge here included participants in the Paris Commune of 1871, W. Liebknecht, L. Kossuth, and G. Mazzini. Among the Russian revolutionary emigres who came to London in the second half of the 19th century were A. I. Herzen, who together with N. P. Ogarev published Kolokol between 1857 and 1865, P. A. Kropotkin, and S. M. Stepniak-Kravchinskii. In April 1902, V. I. Lenin made his first trip to London, where Iskra was published for a time. Here in 1903 the Second Congress of the RSDLP completed its work under the guidance of Lenin, who also directed the Third (1905) and Fifth, or London (1907) Congresses of the RSDLP.
The movement of solidarity with Soviet Russia under the slogan “Hands Off Russia!” achieved considerable momentum in London. On May 10, 1920, London dock workers refused to load armaments intended for the war against Soviet Russia. The constituent assembly of the Communist Party of Great Britain was held here on July 31 and Aug. 1, 1920. The workers of London were active in the General Strike of 1926. After World War II, London saw numerous strikes (dock workers, city transport workers, railroad workers, machine builders, ship builders, municipal employees), which intensified in the early 1970’s. The workers of London held mass strikes protesting anti-union legislation between 1970 and 1973.
London is also the focus of Great Britain’s peace movement. For many years “peace marches” from the military atomic research center in Aldermaston to London have been held. Since 1949 national peace congresses and conferences have been convened in London. Numerous diplomatic meetings and international conferences have been held here.
Economy. Greater London is a major industrial center, providing one-sixth of the conventional gross product of the nation’s manufacturing industries. The growth of most sectors was stimulated by the need to provide for the capital’s population, by the processing of imported raw materials passing through the London port, by an abundance of manpower with diverse skills, and by research projects in advanced scientific fields.
Approximately four-fifths of London’s industrial workers (1966) are concentrated in five main industrial regions. The central region, bordering on the City to the north and west, accounts for 20 percent of London’s industrial work force. Here are large printing, garment, and furniture industries, jewelry concerns, and enterprises manufacturing scientific equipment, measuring instruments, machine tools, and equipment for the printing and garment industries. The chief industries of the Thames region (near the docks; 11 percent of the industrial work force) are food and chemical enterprises, nonferrous metallurgy, cable production, ship repairs, automotive construction (Ford plant), and petroleum refining and petrochemicals (downstream). The northern region (Lea Valley; 13 percent of the industrial work force) produces clothing, furniture, chemicals, and electrical products, including radio and television equipment and lamps. The northwestern region (along the roads linking Greater London with the Midlands; 23 percent of those employed in industry) has many new industries, mainly electrical engineering, electronics, and the manufacture of motor vehicles, aircraft, and machine tools. The southwestern region (in the Wandle Valley along the routes to Croydon; about 10 percent of the industrial workers) produces electrical goods, machine tools, scientific equipment, and measuring instruments.
| Table 1. Structure of industry | ||
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of total industrial workers (1966) | Percentage of conventional gross product (1963) | |
| Machine building. | 42.0 | 44.7 |
| Paper and printing. | 12.7 | 11.6 |
| Food. | 9.0 | 15.8 |
| Clothing. | 7.5 | 4.5 |
| Chemicals. | 5.9 | 4.7 |
| Woodworking. | 5.0 | 7.6 |
Greater London is also the country’s transport junction. London Airport, at Heathrow, west of the city and Gatwick Airport to the south are important international airports. The port, one of the world’s largest in terms of freight turnover (66,700,000 tons in 1970), has been extended for 50 km down the Thames. There are five systems of closed docks (the first was built in 1669). Imports, which are five times greater than exports, include oil, foodstuffs, forest products, various raw materials and semifinished products, paper, and a variety of industrial products. Goods produced in the conurbation and other regions are exported through the port. It accounts for one-fourth of Great Britain’s cabotage shipments (the main cargo is coal). London has the world’s oldest subway, constructed between 1860 and 1863.
London is the headquarters of finance and banking institutions, commercial establishments, the boards of many British and international monopolies, and branches of foreign companies. There are stock and commodity exchanges. Important commercial, financial, and other business transactions are conducted here.
Architecture. Unlike other large cities, London did not develop from a single center but was formed through the merger of independent cities and settlements, and this accounts for its extremely diverse architecture. The historical centers of London are Westminster, the focus of London’s political life, and the City, the business section of London, in which are located banks, exchanges, and offices of the major monopolies. Westminster includes Westminster Abbey, Buckingham and St. James’ palaces (from the 16th century), the Banqueting Hall (1619-22; architect, I. Jones), the Palace of Westminster (Parliament), and Westminster Cathedral. Adjoining the City is the Tower Hamlets borough, in which is found the castle of William the Conqueror, known as the Tower, originally the residence of English kings and later a prison for political prisoners; the oldest part of the Tower, the White Tower, dates from about 1078-85.
The boundaries of the City basically coincide with those of the Roman town; the remains of Roman fortifications and the foundations of temples and towers have been preserved. Here are found the Romanesque Church of St. Bartholomew the Great (built from 1123), the Romanesque and Gothic Temple Church (Church of St. Mary, 12th and 13th centuries), and the town hall (Guildhall, c. 1411-40; rebuilt 1788-89 by the architect G. Dance, Jr.). In the western part of the City are the Inns of Court, known as the Temple, with a hall and frame gateway dating from the 16th and 17th centuries. Notable old structures outside central London include the Southwark Cathedral, or St. Saviour’s Church (13th to 15th centuries) and Hampton Court Palace (from 1515; late Gothic hall, 1531-36; east and south wings, 1689-94, architect, C. Wren). The City was built up rapidly and without planning. From the 16th century unsuccessful attempts were made to develop the area according to a plan, for example, the designs proposed by Wren and J. Evelyn after the fire of 1666.
Westminster encompasses the West End, with private residences, hotels, major commercial streets, colleges, museums, and places of entertainment. East of the City lies the East End, an area of docks and workers’ quarters conspicuous for its monotonous buildings and an almost total absence of greenery. Examples of ensemble construction of earlier periods have been preserved mainly in the aristocratic West End. Groups of buildings in the classical style—distinguished by their grandeur and strict unity of design and sometimes integrated with park complexes—were built in Regent’s Park, Regent Street, Oxford Circus, and Park Crescent between 1812 and 1830 by the architect J. Nash. Of the Adelphi, Portland Place, and Fitzroy Square classical ensembles built between 1768 and 1800 by the architects R. and J. Adam, only parts have survived. Other examples of group design are the blocks of model “terrace houses” of the second half of the 19th century.
Individual buildings in the classical style include many churches designed by Wren, for example, St. Mary-le-Bow (1670-80), and the churches by J. Gibbs, notably St. Mary-le-Strand (1714-17) and St. Martin-in-the-Fields (1722-26); St. Paul’s Cathedral (1675-1710; architect, Wren); hospitals in Greenwich (1616-1728; architects, I. Jones, Wren, and J. Vanbrugh) and in Chelsea (1694; architect, Wren); Mansion House, the residence of the lord mayor (1739-53; architect, G. Dance the Elder); and Somerset House (1766-86; architect, W. Chambers). Outstanding examples of late classicism and neoclassicism are the Bank of England (1788-1833; architect, J. Soane; only sections of the original have been preserved), the British Museum (1823-47; architects, R. and S. Smirke), the Royal Exchange (1841-44; architect W. Tite), the London County Hall (1911-22; architect, R. Knott), and Britannic House (1924-27; architect, E. Lutyens). Neo-Gothic structures include the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, All Saints’ Church (1849-59; architect, W. Butterfield) and the church of St. Mary Abbots (1869-79; architect, G. G. Scott), and the Tower Bridge (1886-94; architects, J. Barry and H. Jones). An eclectic style marks King’s Cross Station (1851-52; architect, L. Cubitt) and St. Pancras Station (1868-74; architects G. G. Scott and W. Barlow).
Interesting examples of modern architecture include the Daily Express Building (1932; architects, H. O. Ellis and Clarke), the medical center in Finsbury (Messrs. Tecton, 1939), Royal Festival Hall (1949-51; architects, R. Matthew and L. Martin), the National Council of the Dockers’ Union and the Airways Terminal (both 1956; architect, F. Gibberd), the office building Castrol House (1959; architects, Gollins, M. Ward, and partners), the American embassy (1960; architect, the American E. Saarinen), Vickers House (1962; architect, R. Ward), the Economist Building (1964; architects, A. and P. Smithson), and the Arts Centre (1967; architect, H. Bennett). In the 20th century, housing developments were built in Greater London embodying the modern concept of the satellite city and employing innovative methods of landscape architecture. Among these are the experimental garden cities proposed by E. Howard (Welwyn Garden City, from 1920; architects L. de Soissons and others) and the satellite towns built in accordance with the plan for Greater London prepared by P. Abercrombie in 1944 (Stevenage, from 1946; Harlow, from 1946, architect, F. Gibberd).
The rapid growth of London, the unplanned manner in which the city was built up, transportation difficulties, and extensive damage during World War II necessitated city planning. However, such city planning projects as those of C. Holden and W. Holford for the center of the City (1947) and Holford’s project for the area around St. Paul’s Cathedral (1956) either were not carried out or were realized only partially. The overall development of London has not been affected by the construction of isolated residential projects combining apartment blocks and private houses, for example, the Highpoint blocks in High-gate (1933, Messrs. Tecton), the Hallfield district in Paddington (1949-56; architects, L. Drake and D. Lasdun), Churchill Gardens in Pimlico (1947-55; architects, P. Powell and H. Moya), Golden Lane Estate in the City (1957; principal architect, P. Chamberlin), and Alton Estate in Roehampton (1951-59; architects, H. Bennett and R. Matthew, among others).
Educational, scientific, and cultural institutions. London is the site of the University of London, City University, the City of London Polytechnic, Polytechnic of Central London, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Royal Academy of Music, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Royal Ballet School, Royal Academy of Dance, the London Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Arts, the British Academy, which brings together scholars in the humanities, and the Royal Institute of Great Britain, as well as a large number of learned societies and scholarly institutions in all spheres of science, technology, and art.
In addition to the British Museum Library, one of the world’s largest, there are the National Library of Science and Technology and large university libraries. Among the more than 30 museums are the British Museum, the Science Museum, the British Museum of Natural History, the Geological Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the London Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Theatre Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Imperial War Museum, and the National Maritime Museum.
London has about 80 theaters (1973), which are leased by various companies. The principal companies are the National Theatre (leasing the Old Vic), a branch of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (Aldwych Theatre), English Stage Company (Royal Court Theatre), and the Mermaid Theatre. Theaters of opera and ballet include Covent Garden and Sadler’s Wells. The Royal Festival Hall and the Royal Albert Hall are the largest concert halls.
REFERENCES
London
a city in southern Canada in Ontario. Population, 224,000 (1971). London is a transportation junction and the commercial and industrial center of an agricultural region (fruit, vegetables). Food, textile, machinery construction (radio and electrical engineering, agricultural, and transportation machinery), and chemical industries, as well as a university, are located in the city.
London
London
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England
 |  |
«God and my right» [1] [2]
God Save the Queen (de facto)
(and largest city)
51°30′N 0°7′W
50,346 sq mi
55,619,4001,098.9/sq mi
England is the largest and most populous constituent country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is located to the north-west of mainland Europe. Its inhabitants account for more than 82 percent of the total population of the United Kingdom.
England is often mistakenly considered the same as the United Kingdom, or the same as the island of Great Britain, which consists of England, Scotland, and Wales. However, England no longer officially exists as an administrative or political unit—as do Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which have varying degrees of self-government in domestic affairs.
England became a unified state during the tenth century and takes its name from the Angles, one of a number of Germanic tribes who settled in the territory during the fifth and sixth centuries.
England ranks among the world’s most influential centers of cultural development. It is the place of origin of the English language and the Church of England, and English law forms the basis of the legal systems of many countries. The nation was the center of the British Empire, and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. England is home to the Royal Society, which laid the foundations of modern experimental science. England was the world’s first parliamentary democracy and consequently many constitutional, governmental and legal innovations that had their origin in England have been widely adopted by other nations.
Contents
The Kingdom of England was a separate state until May 1, 1707, when the Acts of Union resulted in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Geography
The mainland territory of England occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west. Elsewhere, it is bordered by the North Sea, Irish Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and English Channel.
England comprises the central and southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain, plus offshore islands of which the largest is the Isle of Wight. It is bordered to the north by Scotland and to the west by Wales. It is closer to continental Europe than any other part of Britain, and is only 24 miles (52 km) from France. The Channel Tunnel, near Folkestone, directly links England to the European mainland. The English/French border is halfway along the tunnel.
England’s land area is 50,319 square miles (130,325 square kilometers), or slightly smaller than Louisiana in the United States.
Most of England consists of rolling hills, but it is more mountainous in the north with a chain of low mountains, the Pennines, dividing east and west. The dividing line between terrain types is usually indicated by the Tees-Exe line. There is also an area of flat, low-lying marshland in the east, the Fens, much of which has been drained for agricultural use.
The highest point in England is Scafell Pike, which at 3208 feet (978 meters) is part of the Cumbrian Mountains in North West England. Other mountain ranges and hills in England include the Chilterns, Cotswolds, Dartmoor, Lincolnshire Wolds, Exmoor, Lake District, Malvern Hills, Mendip Hills, North Downs, Peak District, Salisbury Plain, South Downs, Shropshire Hills, and Yorkshire Wolds.
England has a temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall all year round. Temperatures rarely fall below 23°F (-5°C) or rise above 86°F (30°C), although they can be quite variable. The prevailing wind is from the south-west, bringing mild and wet weather from the Atlantic Ocean. It is driest in the east and warmest in the south, which is closest to the European mainland. Snowfall can occur in winter and early spring.
England’s best-known river is the Thames, which flows through London. At 215 miles (346km), it is the longest river in England. The River Severn is the longest in total, but it flows from the mountains of Wales, and the parts which run through England are shorter than the Thames. Other rivers include the Trent, Humber, Tyne, Tees, Ribble, Ouse, Mersey, Dee, and Avon.
The largest natural harbor is at Poole, on the south-central coast.
Originally, oak forests covered the lowlands, while pine forests and patches of moorland covered the higher or sandy ground. Much forest has been cleared for cultivation, so that by 2007, only about 9 percent of the total surface was wooded—in east and north of Scotland and in southeast England. Oak, elm, ash, and beech are the most common trees in England, while pine and birch are common in Scotland. Heather, grasses, gorse, and bracken predominate on the moorlands.
Wolves, bears, boars, and reindeer are extinct, but red and roe deer are protected for sport. Foxes, hares, hedgehogs, rabbits, weasels, stoats, shrews, rats, and mice are common, otters are found in many rivers, and seals appear along the coast. The chaffinch, blackbird, sparrow, and starling are the most numerous of the 230 species of birds there, and another 200 are migratory. Game birds—pheasants, partridges, and red grouse—are protected. The rivers and lakes contain salmon, trout, perch, pike, roach, dace, and grayling.
Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanized, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60 percent of food needs with only one percent of the labor force. It contributes around two percent of GDP. Around two thirds of production is devoted to livestock, and one third to arable crops.
As part of the United Kingdom, England is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has met Kyoto Protocol target of a 12.5 percent reduction from 1990] levels and intends to meet the legally binding target of a 20 percent cut in emissions by 2010. The government aims to reduce the amount of industrial and commercial waste disposed of in landfill sites to 85 percent of 1998 levels and to recycle or compost at least 25 percent of household waste, increasing to 33 percent by 2015.
The capital city of England is London, which is the largest city in Great Britain, and the largest city in the European Union by most measures. The Greater London Urban Area has a population of 8,278,251. The ancient City of London still retains its tiny medieval boundaries; but the name «London» has long applied more generally to the whole metropolis which has grown up around it. An important settlement for around two millennia, London is today one of the world’s leading business, financial and cultural centers, and its influence in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the major global cities.
Birmingham is the second largest, both in terms of the city itself and its urban conurbation. A number of other cities, mainly in central and northern England, are of substantial size and influence. These include: Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bristol, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, and Hull.
History
Prehistoric England
Cro-Magnons (the first anatomically modern humans) are believed to have arrived in Europe about 40,000 years ago, and lived in the region that was to become England by 27,000 years ago. Up to around 6000 B.C.E., England was connected to Europe, and was easily accessible by nomadic hunter-gatherers. Around 4000 B.C.E., Neolithic immigrants brought agriculture, used stone tools, buried their dead in communal graves of stone or mounds of earth, and conducted rituals at henge monuments. From around 2300 B.C.E., Beaker folk, who buried their dead in individual graves, often with a drinking vessel, arrived from the Low Countries and middle Rhine. These people knew how to work copper and gold. Wessex chieftains dominated trade, and ensuing prosperity enabled these chieftains to build the large bluestone monoliths known as Stonehenge.
The Celts
From the eighth century B.C.E., Celts arrived, and hill forts began to appear. A succession of migrations took place from 700 B.C.E. to 400 B.C.E. Settlements had a traditional round house, and farming was characterized by small fields, and storage pits for grain. Iron daggers were made, then swords, and with increasing pressure on resources, increasing numbers of hill forts were built.
Romans invade
The first Roman invasion of the British Isles was led by Julius Caesar in 55 B.C.E.; the second, a year later in 54 B.C.E. Although no territory was taken for the Roman Empire on either occasion, this was the start of the Roman settlement of Britain. The Romans had many supporters among the Celtic tribal leaders, who agreed to pay tributes to Rome in return for Roman protection. The Romans returned in 44 C.E., led by Claudius, this time establishing control, and establishing a province Britannia. Initially an oppressive rule, gradually the new leaders gained a firmer hold on their new territory which at one point stretched from the south coast of England to Wales and as far away as Scotland (though they did not hold the latter for long). Hadrian’s Wall, built on the Solway-Tyne isthmus (122 C.E.-130 C.E.) marked the frontier of Roman civilization.
Over the approximately 350 years of Roman occupation of Britain, the majority of settlers were soldiers garrisoned on the mainland. It was with constant contact with Rome and the rest of Romanized Europe through trade and industry that the native Britons themselves adopted Roman culture and customs.
Christianity introduced
Christianity is thought to have come from three directions—from Rome (via Roman merchants and soldiers), and from Scotland and Ireland. Christianity made little headway until the late fourth century, initially among wealthy villa owners. By the end of Roman rule, in 410 C.E., Christian leaders followed the teachings of the Briton Pelagius (354-420), considered heretical, because he denied the doctrine of original sin, and emphasized the importance of the human will over divine grace in attaining salvation. This philosophy of self-reliance is a British characteristic. St Augustine (who died in 604) was the first Archbishop of Canterbury. The Synod of Whitby in 685 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism.
Anglo-Saxon England
The history of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of early medieval England from the end of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the fifth century until the Conquest by the Normans in 1066. It is speculated that the first Germanic immigrants to Britain arrived at the invitation of the Roman rulers. The traditional division into Angles, Saxons and Jutes is first seen in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum by Bede, however historical and archaeological research has shown that a wider range of Germanic peoples from the coast of Frisia, Lower Saxony, Jutland, and Southern Sweden moved to Britain in this era. After the withdrawal of the last legions in the early fifth century, the number of newcomers increased, and it is speculated that relations with the ruling Romanized Britons became strained.
By about 449, open conflict had broken out, and the immigrants began to establish their own kingdoms in what would eventually become the Heptarchy, the seven petty kingdoms which eventually merged to become the Kingdom of England: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex. As early as the time of Ethelbert of Kent (560-616), one king could be recognized as Bretwalda («Lord of Britain»). The title fell in the seventh century to the kings of Northumbria, in the eighth to those of Mercia, and finally, in the ninth, to Egbert of Wessex, who in 825 defeated the Mercians at the Battle of Ellendun. In the next century his family came to rule all England.
Vikings
The earliest Viking raid on Britain was 789 when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Portland was attacked. A more reliable report dates from June 8, 793, when the monastery at Lindisfarne on the east coast of England was pillaged. These raiders, whose expeditions extended well into the ninth century, were gradually followed by settlers who brought a new culture and tradition markedly different from that of the prevalent Anglo-Saxon society. These enclaves expanded, and soon Viking warriors established areas of control that could be described as kingdoms. Viking conquest of large parts of England established the Danelaw, a name given to northern and eastern England in which the laws of the Danes held predominance over those of the Anglo-Saxons.
The Kingdom of England
Originally, England (or Angleland) was a geographical term to describe the territory of Britain which was occupied by the Anglo-Saxons, rather than a name of an individual nation-state. During the ninth century, the southern Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex came to dominate other kingdoms in England (especially as a result of the extinction of rival lines in England during the First Viking Age). Alfred the Great (849-899), who was king of Wessex from 871 to 899, defeated the Viking Guthrum at the Battle of Edington in 878.
England was unified in 927 by Athelstan. For several hundred years, the Kingdom of England would fall in and out of power between several Wessex and Danish kings. For over half a century, the unified Kingdom of England became part of a vast Danish empire under Canute the Great (995-1035), before regaining independence for a short period under the restored West-Saxon lineage of Edward the Confessor(1004-1066).
The Kingdom of England (including Wales) continued to exist as an independent nation-state right through to the Acts of Union and the Union of Crowns. However the political ties and direction of England were changed forever by the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Norman conquest
William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy) landed in England in September 1066 to assert his claim to the throne. The Saxon king Harold II had just destroyed an invading Norwegian Viking army under King Harald Hardråda, ending the Viking age. William’s success at the Battle of Hastings (October 14, 1066), in which the Saxon king Harold II was killed, resulted in the Norman control of England. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes. The Norman conquest was a pivotal event in English history for a number of reasons. This conquest linked England more closely with Continental Europe through the introduction of a Norman aristocracy, thereby lessening Scandinavian influence. It created one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe and engendered a sophisticated governmental system. The use of the Anglo-Norman language by the aristocracy endured for centuries and left an indelible mark in the development of modern English. The conquest changed the English culture, and set the stage for rivalry with France, which would continue intermittently until the twentieth century. It has an iconic role in English national identity as the last successful military conquest of England.
The Middle Ages
The English Middle Ages, which lasted from 1066 until conflicts over the English throne between the Houses of Lancaster and York, known as the Wars of the Roses, ended in 1487, were characterized by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue among the aristocratic and monarchic elite. England was an important part of expanding and dwindling empires based in France, with the «King of England» being a subsidiary title of a succession of French-speaking Dukes of territories in what became France. English kings used England as a source of troops to enlarge their personal holdings in France for the duration of the Hundred Years’ War (1337 to 1453). In fact the English crown did not relinquish its last foothold on mainland France until Calais was lost during the reign of Mary Tudor (the Channel Islands remain crown dependencies).
The Principality of Wales, under the control of English monarchs from the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Wales shared a legal identity with England as the joint entity originally called «England» and later «England and Wales.»
Magna Carta
The signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, had lasting impact. King John (1166 – 1216) suffered the loss of Normandy and numerous other French territories following the disastrous Battle of Bouvines in 1214. He managed to antagonize the feudal nobility and leading Church figures to the extent that in 1215, they led an armed rebellion and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which required the king to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that «the will of the king could be bound by law.» It established that the king may not levy or collect any taxes (except the feudal taxes to which they were hitherto accustomed) without the consent of a council. Magna Carta was the most significant early influence on the long historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law.
The Black Death
An epidemic of catastrophic proportions, the Black Death first reached England in the summer of 1348. The Black Death is estimated to have killed between a third and two-thirds of Europe’s population. England alone lost as many as 70 percent of its population, which passed from seven million to two million in 1400. The plague repeatedly returned to haunt England throughout the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. The Great Plague of London in 1665–1666 was the last plague outbreak.
The English Reformation
During the English Reformation, the external authority of the Roman Catholic Church in England was abolished and replaced with a Church of England, outside the Roman Catholic Church, under the Supreme Governance of the English monarch. The English Reformation differed from its European counterparts in that it was a political, rather than purely theological, dispute at root.
John Wycliffe (c. 1320–1384), an English theologian and early proponent of reform in the Roman Catholic Church, worked tirelessly on an English translation of the Bible in one complete edition. Since his beliefs and teachings seemed to compare closely with Luther, Calvin, and other reformers, historians have called Wycliffe «The Morning Star of the Reformation.» The itinerant preachers, called Lollards, Wycliffe sent throughout England, created a spiritual revolution. Intense persecution, from both the religious and secular authorities, cracked down on the Lollards sending the movement underground.
John Wycliffe denied the doctrine of transubstantiation, which holds that the bread and wine used in the Eucharist changes in substance into the body and blood of Jesus. He was condemned in a Papal Bull in 1410, and all his books were burned. The seeds of reform that Wycliffe planted were not to blossom until a couple hundred years later.
The Tudors
The relatively unknown Henry Tudor, Henry VII, won the final conflict in the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where the Yorkist Richard III was killed, thus beginning the Tudor period, which lasted until the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603.
King Henry VIII (1491-1547) split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Though his religious position was not at all Protestant, the resultant schism ultimately led to England distancing itself almost entirely from Rome. There followed a period of great religious and political upheaval, which led to the English Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and much of the wealth of the church. The dissolution of the monasteries had the effect of giving many of the lower classes (the gentry) a vested interest in the Reformation continuing, for to halt it would be to revive Monasticism and restore lands which were gifted to them during the Dissolution.
Henry VIII had one legitimate child and two illegitimate children who survived him. Edward VI of England, Henry’s legitimate heir, was only a boy of 10 when he took the throne in 1547. When Edward VI lay dying of tuberculosis in 1553, Mary I (1516-1558) took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favor in London. Mary, a devout Catholic, also known as Bloody Mary, tried to re-impose Catholicism, which led to 274 burnings of Protestants, which are recorded especially in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. She was highly unpopular among her people, and the Spanish party of her husband, Philip II caused resentment around Court. Mary died at the age of 42, to be succeeded by her half-sister, who became Elizabeth I.
The reign of Elizabeth restored a sort of order to the realm. The religious issue, which had divided the country since Henry VIII, was put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which created the Church of England in much the same form we see it today. The Act of Supremacy of 1559 re-established the English church’s independence from Rome, with parliament conferring on Elizabeth the title Supreme Governor of the Church of England, while the Act of Uniformity of 1559 set out the form the English church would take, including establishing the Book of Common Prayer, and phrasing the delicate issue of transubstantiation. Much of Elizabeth’s success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans (radical Protestants) and «die-hard» Catholics.
The slave trade that established Britain as a major economic power can be attributed to Elizabeth, who granted John Hawkins the permission to commence trading in 1562. The number of Africans transported to England was so great due to the slave trade that by 1596, Elizabeth complained. She tried unsuccessfully to expel them via a Proclamation in 1601.
The Stuarts
Elizabeth died in 1603 without leaving any direct heirs. Her closest male Protestant relative was the King of Scots, James VI, of the House of Stuart, who, following the Union of the Crowns, became King James I of England. King James I & VI as he was styled became the first king of the entire island of Great Britain, though he continued to rule the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland separately. James survived a number of assassination attempts, notably the Main Plot and Bye Plots of 1603, and most famously, on November 5, 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, by a group of Catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, which was stoked up and served as further fuel for antipathy in England towards the Catholic faith.
British colonies
Plantations in Ireland, from 1608, formed a pattern for establishing colonies, and several people involved in those projects also had a hand in the early colonization of North America—Humphrey Gilbert, Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake and Ralph Lane. In 1607, England built an establishment in Virginia (Jamestown), in what was to become the United States of America. This was the beginning of English colonization. Many English settled in North America for religious or economic reasons. While the first party religious pilgrims left for the New World in 1620, in the second half of the seventeenth century, those numbers increased dramatically, as these religious pilgrims sought a land where they could worship freely.
The English merchants holding plantations in the warm southern parts of America then resorted rather quickly to the slavery of Native Americans and imported Africans in order to cultivate their plantations and sell raw material (particularly cotton and tobacco) in Europe. The English merchants involved in colonization accrued fortunes equal to those of great aristocratic landowners in England, and their money, which fueled the rise of the middle class, permanently altered the balance of political power.
The empire took shape during the early seventeenth century, with the English settlement of the eastern colonies of North America, which would later become the original United States, as well as Canada’s Atlantic provinces, and the colonization of the smaller islands of the Caribbean such as Saint Kitts, Barbados and Jamaica. The sugar-producing colonies of the Caribbean, where slavery became central to the economy, were at first England’s most important and lucrative colonies.
Civil war
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651. The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between James’ son, Charles I, and Parliament. The defeat of the Royalist army by the New Model Army of Parliament at the Battle of Naseby in June 1645 effectively destroyed the king’s forces. Charles surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark. He was handed over to the English Parliament in early 1647. He escaped and the Second English Civil War began, although it was to be only a short conflict, with parliament quickly securing the country. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles led to his beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London. The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651. The English monarchy was replaced with the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and then with a Protectorate (1653–1659), under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell. After a brief return to Commonwealth rule, in 1660 The Crown was restored and Charles II accepted parliament’s invitation to return to England.
During this period from 1649-1660, known as the «interregnum,» the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England came to an end, and the victors consolidated the already-established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established a precedent that British monarchs could not govern without the consent of Parliament although this would not be cemented until the Glorious Revolution later in the century.
In 1665, the plague, swept through London, and in 1666, the Great Fire raged for five days, destroying approximately 15,000 buildings.
Glorious Revolution
The death of Charles II in 1685 meant his Catholic brother was crowned King James II & VII. England with a Catholic King on the throne was too much for both people and parliament and in 1689 the Dutch Protestant Prince William of Orange was invited to replace King James II in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. Despite attempts to secure his reign by force, James was finally defeated by William at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. On February 13, 1689, parliament passed the Declaration of Right, in which it deemed that James, by attempting to flee on December 11, 1688, had abdicated the government of the realm, thereby leaving the Throne vacant. William and Mary were crowned together at Westminster Abbey on April 11, 1689.
William III of England encouraged the passage of the Act of Toleration 1689, which guaranteed religious toleration to certain Protestant nonconformists. It did not, however, extend toleration to Roman Catholics or those of non-Christian faiths. Thus the Act was not as wide-ranging as James II’s Declaration of Indulgence, which attempted to grant freedom of conscience to people of all faiths.
However, in parts of Scotland and Ireland Catholics loyal to James remained determined to see him restored to the throne and there followed a series of bloody though unsuccessful uprisings. As a result of these, any failure to pledge loyalty to the victorious King William was severely dealt with. The most infamous example of this policy being the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692. Jacobite rebellions continued on into the mid-eighteenth century until the son of the last Catholic claimant to the throne, |James III & VIII, mounted a final campaign in 1745. The Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the «Bonnie Prince Charlie» of legend, were resoundingly defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
United Kingdom formed
Under the Acts of Union 1707, England (including Wales) and Scotland, which had been in personal union since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, agreed to a political union in the form of a unified Kingdom of Great Britain. The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1541 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.
Since 1707, England, while ceasing to exist as an independent political entity, has remained highly dominant in what is now the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Due to her geographic size and large population, the dominant political and economic influence in the UK stems from England. London has remained the capital city of the UK and has built upon its status as the economic and political center of the UK.
Enlightenment Britain
Britain was an important part of the Age of Enlightenment with philosophical and scientific input and a literary and theatrical tradition. Over the next century England played an important role in developing Western ideas of parliamentary democracy, partly via the emergence of a multi-party system, as evidenced in the rise of the Whig and Tory political parties. There were significant contributions to literature, the arts and science. But, like other Great Powers, England was involved in colonial exploitation, including the infamous Atlantic slave trade, until the passing of the 1807 Slave Trade Act made Great Britain the first nation to permanently prohibit trade in slaves.
Confidence in the rule of law, which followed establishment of the prototype of constitutional monarchy in Britain in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the emergence of a stable financial market there based on the management of the national debt by the Bank of England, contributed to the capacity for, and interest in, private financial investment in industrial ventures. In addition, Britain had an entrepreneurial class which believed in progress, technology and hard work. This Protestant work ethic has been regarded as one of the cornerstones of national prosperity.
The British Empire
After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) in the Napoleonic Wars (1804-1815), Britain became the principal naval power of the nineteenth century. At its peak, the British Empire was the largest empire in history and for a substantial time was the foremost global power.
The Industrial Revolution
England led the Industrial Revolution, a period in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when technological advances and mechanization transformed a largely agrarian society throughout Europe, causing considerable social upheaval. Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centers of production, as the steam-based production factories could undercut traditional cottage industries. The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in the rise of infant mortality (to the extent that many Sunday schools for pre-working age children, five or six, had funeral clubs to pay for each other’s funeral arrangements), crime, and social deprivation. Many workers saw their livelihoods threatened by the process, and some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as Luddites.
Suffrage extended
During the early nineteenth century, the working classes began to find a voice. Concentrations of industry led to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist government policy. Chartism is thought to have originated from the passing of the 1832 Reform Bill, which gave the vote to the majority of the (male) middle classes, but not to the «working class.» Many people made speeches on the «betrayal» of the working class and the «sacrificing» of their «interests» by the «misconduct» of the government. In 1838, six members of Parliament and six working men formed a committee, which then published the People’s Charter.
But by the end of the Victorian era (1900), England lost its industrial leadership, particularly to the United States, which surpassed England in industrial production and trade in the 1890s, as well as to the German Empire.
Victorian England
England’s Victorian era marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Although commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria’s rule between 1837 and 1901, scholars debate whether the Victorian period—as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the Victorians—actually begins with the passage of the Reform Act 1832. The era was preceded by the Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period
By virtue of Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert, son of Duke Ernst I of the small German duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, her descendants were members of the ducal family of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha with the house name of Wettin. Victoria’s son Edward VII and his son George V reigned as members of this house.
World War I
The First World War was a global military conflict which took place primarily in Europe between 1914 and 1918. More than nine million soldiers and civilians died. The conflict had a decisive impact on the history of the twentieth century. The Entente Powers, led by France, Russia, the United Kingdom and later Italy (from 1915) and the United States (from 1917), defeated the Central Powers, led by the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman Empires. Russia withdrew from the war after the revolution in 1917.
High anti-German feeling among the people during World War I prompted the Royal Family to abandon all titles held under the German crown and to change German-sounding titles and house names for English-sounding versions. On July 17, 1917, a royal proclamation by George V provided that all agnatic descendants of Queen Victoria would be members of the House of Windsor with the personal surname of Windsor. The name Windsor has a long association with English royalty through the town of Windsor and Windsor Castle.
After the carnage of the Great War, Britain remained an eminent power, and its empire expanded to its maximum size, gaining the League of Nations mandate over former German and Ottoman colonies after World War I. By 1921, the British Empire held sway over a population of about 458 million people, approximately one-quarter of the world’s population. It covered about 14.2 million square miles, about a quarter of Earth’s total land area. As a result, its legacy is widespread, in legal and governmental systems, economic practice, militarily, educational systems, sports (such as cricket, rugby and football), and in the global spread of the English language and Anglican Christianity. At the peak of its power, it was often said that «the sun never sets on the British Empire» because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous colonies or subject nations.
Independence for the Irish Free State in 1922 followed the partition of Ireland two years previously, with six of the nine counties of the province of Ulster remaining within the UK, which then changed in 1927 to the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
World War II
The Second World War was a worldwide military conflict which lasted from 1939 to 1945. It was the amalgamation of two conflicts, one beginning in Asia, in 1937, as the Second Sino-Japanese War and the other beginning in Europe, in 1939, with the invasion of Poland. It is regarded as the historical successor to World War I. The majority of the world’s nations split into two opposing camps: The Allies and the Axis. England fought with its Commonwealth allies including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India, later to be joined by further allies. Spanning much of the globe, World War II resulted in the deaths of over 60 million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. The conflict ended in an Allied victory.
Wartime leader Winston Churchill and his successor Clement Atlee helped plan the post-war world as part of the «Big Three.» World War II, however, left England financially and physically damaged. Loans taken out during and after World War II from the United States and from Canada were economically costly, but, along with post-war U.S. Marshall aid, they started England on the road to recovery. As a result, the United States and Soviet Union emerged as the world’s two leading superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War for the next 45 years. Independence movements arose in Asia and Africa, while Europe itself began traveling the road leading to integration. During the five decades following World War II, most of the territories of the Empire became independent. Many went on to join the Commonwealth of Nations, a free association of independent states.
Multi-ethnic welfare state
The immediate post-war years brought the establishment of the British Welfare State and one of the world’s first and most comprehensive health services, while the demands of a recovering economy brought people from all over the Commonwealth to create a multi-ethnic England. Although the new postwar limits of Britain’s political role were confirmed by the Suez Crisis of 1956, the international currency of the language meant the continuing impact of its literature and culture, while at the same time from the 1960s its popular culture found an influence abroad.
Following a period of economic stagnation and industrial strife in the 1970s after a global economic downturn, the 1980s saw the inflow of substantial North Sea oil revenues, and the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, under whom there was a marked break with the post-war political and economic consensus. Her supporters credit her with economic success, but her critics blame her for greater social division. From the mid-1990s onward these trends largely continued under the leadership of Tony Blair.
The United Kingdom has been a member of the European Union since 1973. The attitude of the Labour government (from the mid 1990s to mid 2000s) towards further integration with this organization has been mixed, and the Liberal Democrats supportive.
Government and politics
There has not been a Government of England since 1707, when the Kingdom of England merged with the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, although both kingdoms have been ruled by a single monarch since 1603. Prior to the Acts of Union of 1707, England was ruled by a monarch and the Parliament of England.
The Scottish and Welsh governing institutions were created by the UK parliament with support from the majority of people of Scotland and Wales in referenda in 1997, and are not independent of the rest of Britain. However, this gave each country a separate and distinct political identity, leaving England (with 83 percent of the UK population) as the only part of Britain directly ruled in nearly all matters by the British government in London. In Cornwall, a region of England claiming a distinct national identity, there has been a campaign for a Cornish assembly along Welsh lines by nationalist parties such as Mebyon Kernow.
Because Westminster is the UK parliament but also votes on local English matters (England has no parliament of its own) devolution of national matters to parliament/assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has refocused attention on a long-standing anomaly called the West Lothian question. Before Scottish devolution, purely-Scottish matters were debated at Westminster, but subject to a convention that only Scottish MPs could vote on them. The «question» was that there was no «reverse» convention: Scottish MPs could and did vote on issues relating only to England and Wales.
Welsh devolution has removed the anomaly for Wales, but highlighted the anomaly for England: Scottish and Welsh MPs can vote on English issues, but purely Scottish and Welsh issues are debated in Scotland and Wales, not at Westminster. This problem is exacerbated by an over-representation of Scottish MPs in the government,sometimes referred to as the Scottish mafia; as of September 2006, seven of the 23 cabinet members were Scottish. In addition, Scotland traditionally benefited from moderate malapportionment in its favor, increasing its representation to a degree disproportionate to its population; only recently has the Boundary Commission turned its attention to this issue and not until the 2007 redrawing of boundaries has Scotland’s representation been in line with the rest of the UK.
In terms of national administration, England’s affairs are managed by a combination of the UK government, the UK parliament, a number of England-specific quangos, such as English Heritage, and the mostly unelected regional assemblies (a kind of nascent executive for each English region).
There are calls for a devolved English Parliament, and some English people and parties go further by calling for the dissolution of the union entirely. However, the approach favored by the Labour government was (on the basis that England is too large to be governed as a single sub-state entity) to propose the devolution of power to the regions of England. Lord Falconer claimed a devolved English parliament would dwarf the rest of the United Kingdom. Referenda would decide whether people wanted to vote for directly-elected regional assemblies to watch over the work of the non-elected regional development agencies.
Subdivisions
Historically, the highest level of local government in England was the county. These divisions had emerged from a range of units of old, pre-unification England (such as the kingdoms of Sussex and Kent) and further medieval reorganizations (sometimes using duchies such as Lancashire and Cornwall). These historical county lines were usually drawn up before the Industrial Revolution and the mass urbanization of England. The counties each had a county town and many county names were drawn from these (for example Nottinghamshire, from Nottingham).
A series of local government reorganizations took place since the latter part of the nineteenth century. The solution to the emergence of large urban areas was the creation of large metropolitan counties centered on cities (an example being Greater Manchester). The creation of unitary authorities, where districts gained the administrative status of a county, began with the 1990s reform of local government. Some confusion persists between the ceremonial counties (which do not necessarily form an administrative unit) and the metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties.
Non-metropolitan counties (or «shire counties») are divided into one or more districts. At the very lowest level, England is divided into parishes, though these are not to be found everywhere (many urban areas for example are unparished). Parishes are prohibited from existing in Greater London.
England was also divided into nine regions, which do not have an elected authority and exist to co-ordinate certain local government functions across a wider area. Greater London is an exception, however, and is the one region which now has a representative authority as well as a directly elected mayor. The 32 London boroughs and the Corporation of London remain the local form of government in the city.
Economics
England’s economy is the second largest economy in Europe and the fifth largest economy in the world. It follows the Anglo-Saxon economic model. England’s economy is the largest of the four economies of the United Kingdom, with 100 of Europe’s 500 largest corporations based in London. As part of the United Kingdom, England is a major center of world economics. One of the world’s most highly industrialized countries, England is a leader in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors and in key technical industries, particularly aerospace, the arms industry and the manufacturing side of the software industry. London exports mainly manufactured goods and imports materials such as petroleum, tea, wool, raw sugar, timber, butter, metals, and meat, exporting over 30,000 metric tons of beef in 2005, worth around £75,000,000, with France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain being the biggest importers of beef from England.
The central bank of the United Kingdom, which sets interest rates and implements monetary policy, is the Bank of England in London. London is also home to the London Stock Exchange, the main stock exchange in the UK and the largest in Europe. London, is one of the international leaders in finance and the largest financial center in Europe.
Traditional heavy and manufacturing industries declined sharply in England in the late twentieth century, as they have in the United Kingdom as a whole. At the same time, service industries have grown in importance. For example, tourism is the sixth largest industry in the UK, contributing 76 billion pounds to the economy. It employs 1,800,000 full-time equivalent people—6.1 percent of the working population (2002 figures). The largest center for tourism is London, which attracts millions of international tourists every year. As part of the United Kingdom, England’s official currency is the pound sterling (also known as the British pound or GBP).
Transport
BAA Limited runs many of England’s airports, its flagship being London Heathrow Airport, the largest airport by traffic volume in Europe and one of the world’s busiest airports, and London Gatwick Airport, the second largest. The third largest is Manchester Airport. This is run by Manchester Airport Group, which also owns various other airports. Other major airports include London Stansted Airport in Essex, about 30 miles (50 km) north of London and Birmingham International Airport.
The growth in private car ownership in the latter half of the twentieth century led to a number of road-building programmes. Important trunk roads built include the A1 Great North Road from London to Newcastle and Edinburgh, and the A580 «East Lancs.» road between Liverpool and Manchester. The Preston Bypass was the first section of motorway and opened in 1958—it now forms part of the M6 motorway, the country’s longest motorway running from Rugby through North West England to the Scottish border.
The National Rail network consists of 10,072 route miles (16,116 route km) in Great Britain, of which the majority is in England. Urban rail networks are also well developed in London and several other cities, including the Manchester Metrolink and the London Underground, the oldest and most extensive underground railway in the world, and consisting in 2007 of 253 miles (407 kilometers) of line and serves 275 stations.
There are around 4400 miles of navigable waterways in England, of which roughly half is owned by British Waterways. It is estimated that 165 million journeys are made by people on Britain’s waterways annually. The Thames is the major waterway in England, with imports and exports focused at Tilbury, one of the three major ports in the UK.
Demographics
With around 55 million inhabitants, England is the most populous nation in the United Kingdom, as well as being the most ethnically diverse. England would have the fourth largest population in the European Union and would be the 25th largest country by population if it were a sovereign state.
The country’s population is «aging,» with a declining percentage of the population under age 16 and a rising one of over 65. England is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, with 992 people per square mile (383 people per square kilometer) making it second only to the Netherlands.
The economic prosperity of England has made it a destination for economic migrants from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This was particularly true during the Industrial Revolution. Since the fall of the British Empire, numerous people from former colonies have migrated to Britain including the Indian sub-continent and the British Caribbean.
The continuous increase in population resulted from net immigration, from a rising birth rate, and increasing life expectancy.
Ethnicity
The generally accepted view is that the ethnic background of the English populace, before nineteenth- and twentieth-century immigration, was a mixed European one deriving from historical waves of Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Norman invasions, along with the possible survival of pre-Celtic ancestry. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, furthermore, brought much new immigration to England.
In some English cities the percentage of «minority groups» is large but is still less than half.
Ethnicity aside, the simplest view is that an English person is someone who was born in England and holds British nationality, regardless of his or her racial origin. The English frequently include themselves and their neighbors in the wider term of «British,» while the Scots and Welsh tend to be more forward about referring to themselves by one of those more specific terms. This reflects a more subtle form of English-specific patriotism in England; St George’s Day, the country’s national day, is barely celebrated, though celebrations have increased. Modern celebration of English identity is often found around its sports, one field in which the British Home Nations often compete individually—in football (soccer), rugby union, and cricket.
Religion
Unlike many countries, which are officially secular, the UK is an officially Christian country. This is reflected throughout British public life. The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, and acts as the «mother» and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Originally established as part of the Roman Catholic Church in 597 by Augustine of Canterbury on behalf of Pope Gregory I, the Church split from Rome in 1534 during the reign of Henry VIII of England. Some Church of England bishops sit in the House of Lords. The British monarch is required to be a member of the Church of England under the Act of Settlement 1701 and is the Supreme Governor. Roman Catholics are expressly forbidden from becoming monarch, stemming from conflict over the crown and whether Britain was in the past, Catholic or Protestant. The Church of England is based at Canterbury Cathedral and the Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior clergyman.
Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations include the Religious Society of Friends (the «Quakers») and the Salvation Army—both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area. The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the nineteenth century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.
However, immigration has brought an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, levels of church attendance has declined, and there is a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation.
Language
The English language, which is spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue, although not officially designated as such. An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and Frisian. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, «Old English» emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.
Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among all classes and for all official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. But Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and in more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, being always remarkable for its far-flung willingness to incorporate foreign-influenced words.
It is most commonly accepted that—thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States—the English language became the world’s unofficial lingua franca, while English common law is also the foundation of many legal systems throughout the English-speaking countries of the world. English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.
UK legislation does not recognize any language as being official, but English is the only language used in England for general official business.
The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the nineteenth century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by around 2000 people. Languages spoken within ethnic minority communities include Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Polish, Greek, Turkish, and Cantonese, as well as Romany.
Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are a many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.
Men and women
About half of British women work, and of these, half are part-time workers. The ideal of gender equality is widely shared, but inequality is evident in access to occupations by women and men, pay levels for similar kinds of work, and in the allocation of domestic tasks.
Marriage and the family
Historically most people in England lived either in conjugal extended families or nuclear families. This reflected an economic landscape where most people tended to have less spending power, meaning that it was more practical to stick together rather than go their individual ways. This pattern also reflected gender roles. Men were expected to go out to work and women were expected to stay at home and look after the families.
In the twentieth century, the emancipation of women, the greater freedoms enjoyed by both men and women in the years following the Second World War, greater affluence and easier divorce have changed gender roles and living arrangements significantly. The trend is a rise in single people living alone, the virtual extinction of the extended family (outside certain ethnic minority communities), and the nuclear family reducing in prominence.
From the 1990s, the break-up of the traditional family unit, when combined with a low interest rate environment and other demographic changes, has created great pressure on the housing market, in particular regarding the accommodation of key workers such as nurses, other emergency service workers and teachers, who are priced out of most housing, especially in South East England.
Some research indicates that in the twenty-first century, young people tend to live in the parental home for much longer than their predecessors. The high cost of living, combined with rising cost of accommodation, further education and higher education means that many young people cannot afford to live independent lives from their families.
Education
England is home to the oldest existing schools in the English speaking world: The King’s School, Canterbury and The King’s School, Rochester, believed to be founded in the sixth and seventh century respectively. There are at least eight existing schools in England which were founded in the first millennium. Most of these ancient institutions are fee-paying schools, although there are early examples of state schools in England, most notably Beverley Grammar School founded in 700. State and private schools and colleges have continued side by side since that time. Other famous English schools include Eton College (founded 1440), Harrow School (1572)Winchester College (1382), Tonbridge School (1553) and Charterhouse School (1611). The oldest surviving girls’ school in England is Red Maids’ School, founded in 1634.
England is home to the two oldest universities in the English speaking world: Oxford University (twelfth century) and Cambridge University (early thirteenth century). There are more than ninety universities in England and many of these (most notably the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London) consist of autonomous colleges many of which are world famous in their own right, for example University College, Oxford (founded 1249), Peterhouse, Cambridge (1284) and the London School of Economics (1895).
England’s high literacy rate of 99 percent is attributable to universal public education introduced for the primary level in 1870 and secondary level in 1900. The education is split into two main types; State schools which are funded through taxation and free to all, and private schools, which provide a paid-for education on top of taxes (also known as «Public» or «Independent» schools).
Most English (but not independent) schools usher students through nursery school, one of two primary school tracks, and one of two secondary tracks, of which sixth form is optional. About one-fifth of British students go on to post-secondary education (18+).
Education follows the national curriculum, which was introduced in 1988, which includes the core subjects English, mathematics, and science and the foundation subjects: Design and technology, [[information and communication technology], history, geography, modern foreign languages (MFL), music, art and design, and the subjects of the basic curriculum, physical education, citizenship education, plus compulsory religious education (RE) which has a unique place in British law.
Class
Traditionally, British society has been stratified into three classes, with the highest occupied by the aristocratic inheritors of old, landed wealth. Those in the working class typically grew up in a family supported by wages earned in industrial or agricultural labor, where neither parent had university education, and the family home was rented. The working class supports the trade union movement and the Labor Party. A middle-class person has parents with white-collar jobs, who are likely to have higher education, own their suburban house, and who see education as the key to advancement. They tend to support the Conservative Party, which stresses self-sufficiency and individualism. However, de-industrialization, increased social mobility, and the emergence of the knowledge economy have re-defined notions of class, so that numerous educated middle class people vote for the Labor Party.
Culture
Many of the most important figures in the history of modern western scientific and philosophical thought were either born in, or at one time or other resided in, England. Major English thinkers of international significance include scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Charles Darwin and New Zealand-born Ernest Rutherford, philosophers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell and Thomas Hobbes, and economists such as David Ricardo and John Maynard Keynes. Karl Marx wrote most of his important works, including Das Kapital, while in exile in London, and the team that developed the first atomic bomb began their work in the England, under the wartime codename tube alloys.
Architecture
The earliest remnants of architecture in the United Kingdom are mainly Neolithic monuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury, and Roman ruins such as the spa in Bath. Many castles remain from the medieval period and in most towns and villages the parish church is an indication of the age of the settlement, built as they were from stone rather than the traditional wattle and daub.
Over the two centuries following the Norman conquest of 1066, and the building of the Tower of London], many great castles such as Caernarfon Castle in Wales and Carrickfergus Castle in Ireland were built to suppress the natives. Windsor Castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world and the oldest in continuous occupation. Large houses continued to be fortified until the Tudor period, when the first of the large gracious unfortified mansions such as the Elizabethan Montacute House and Hatfield House were built.
The English Civil War (1642—1649) proved to be the last time in British history that houses had to survive a siege. Corfe Castle was destroyed following an attack by Oliver Cromwell’s army, but Compton Wynyates survived a similar ordeal. Inigo Jones, from just before the Civil War, and who is regarded as the first significant British architect, was responsible for importing Palladian architecture to Britain from Italy. The Queen’s House at Greenwich is perhaps his best surviving work.
Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, one of the best-known British architects, Sir Christopher Wren, was employed to design and rebuild many of the ruined ancient churches of London, although his master plan for rebuilding London as a whole was rejected. It was in this period that he designed the building that he is perhaps best known for, St Paul’s Cathedral.
In the early eighteenth century baroque architecture—popular in Europe—was introduced, and Blenheim Palace was built. However, baroque was quickly replaced by a return of the Palladian form. The Georgian architecture of the eighteenth century was an evolved form of Palladianism. Many existing buildings such as Woburn Abbey and Kedleston Hall are in this style. Among the many architects of this form of architecture and its successors, neoclassicism and Romanticism, were Robert Adam, Sir William Chambers, and James Wyatt.
In the early nineteenth century the romantic medieval gothic style appeared as a backlash to the symmetry of Palladianism, and such buildings as Fonthill Abbey were built. By the middle of the nineteenth century, as a result of new technology, construction incorporated steel. One of the greatest exponents of this was Joseph Paxton, architect of the Crystal Palace. Paxton also continued to build such houses as Mentmore Towers, in the still popular retrospective English Renaissance styles. In this era of prosperity and development British architecture embraced many new methods of construction, but ironically in style, such architects as August Pugin ensured it remained firmly in the past.
At the beginning of the twentieth century a new form of design—arts and crafts—became popular. The architectural form of this style, which had evolved from the nineteenth century designs of such architects as George Devey, was championed by Edwin Lutyens. Arts and crafts in architecture is symbolized by an informal, non-symmetrical form, often with mullioned or lattice windows, multiple gables and tall chimneys. This style continued to evolve until World War II.
Following the Second World War, reconstruction went through a variety of phases, but was heavily influenced by Modernism, especially from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Many bleak town center redevelopments—criticized for featuring hostile, concrete-lined «windswept plazas»—were the fruit of this interest, as were many equally bleak public buildings, such as the Hayward Gallery. Many Modernist-inspired town centers are today in the process of being redeveloped.
In the immediate post-war years, perhaps hundreds of thousands of council houses in vernacular style were built, giving working class people their first experience of private gardens and indoor sanitation.
Modernism remains a significant force in English architecture, although its influence is felt predominantly in commercial buildings. The two most prominent proponents are Lord Rogers of Riverside, who created Rogers’ the iconic London Lloyd’s Building and the Millennium Dome, and Lord Foster of Thames Bank, who created the Swiss Re Buildings (aka The Gherkin) and the City Hall (London).
Since England has one of the highest population densities in Europe, housing tends to be smaller and more closely packed, particularly compared to North America. The British have a particular affinity with the terraced house, dating back to the aftermath of the Great Fire of London. The majority of surviving housing built before 1914 is of this type, and consequently it dominates inner residential areas. In the twentieth century the process of suburbanization led to a spread of semi-detached and detached housing. In the aftermath of the Second World War, public housing was dramatically expanded to create a large number of council estates, although most units in these have since been bought by their tenants.
Презентация была опубликована 7 лет назад пользователемЕлена Сенявина
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3 London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom, was founded 2000 years ago by the Romans as Londinium. London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom, was founded 2000 years ago by the Romans as Londinium.
4 Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace is where the Queen lives. Buckingham Palace is the Queen’s official and main royal London home.
5 It has been the official London residence of Britain’s monarchy since Queen Victoria was the first monarch to live there. Queen VictoriaQueen Victoria
6 Who lives in Buckingham Palace today? Buckingham Palace is not only the home of the Queen and Prince Philip but also the London residence of the Duke of York (Prince Andrew) and the Earl and Countess of Wessex (Prince Edward and his wife) and their daughter.
9 History of Buckingham Palace… Buckingham Palace was originally a grand house built by the Dukes of Buckingham for his wife. George IV began transforming it into a palace in 1826.
10 Changing of the Guard
12 Trafalgar Square Trafalgar Square, the largest square in London, is often considered the heart of London.Trafalgar Square, the largest square in London, is often considered the heart of London.
13 Trafalgar Square Ever since the Middle Ages, Trafalgar Square has been a central meeting place. At the middle of the square stands a tall column, a monument honoring admiral Nelson.
14 Nelson’s Column At the center of the square is the tall Nelson’s Column At the center of the square is the tall Nelson’s Column
17 St. Martin-in-the-Fields At the north-east corner is the St. Martin-in-the-Fields parish church.
19 The clock was the largest in the world and is still the largest in Great- Britain.
24 The structure was designed by the architectural team of David Marks and Julia Barfield, husband and wife.
26 Visitors travel in the ceapsuls. Each one holds about 20 people. Visitors travel in the ceapsuls. Each one holds about 20 people.
31 Leadenhall Market View over the City from the London Eye
32 London Telephone Booth St. Pancras Station St. Pancras Station
33 London Double deckers
34 Royal Naval College County Hall County Hall