Tag: London

Rufus Isaacs, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

First Marquess of Reading, Lawyer and Statesman, lived and died here, 1860-1935

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Isaacs,_1st_Marquess_of_Reading

Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, PC, KC (10 October 1860 – 30 December 1935), was an English lawyer, jurist and politician. Both of his wives were Dames Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE). The son of a Jewish fruit merchant at Spitalfields, Rufus Daniel Isaacs was educated at University College School, and then entered the family business at the age of fifteen. In 1876-77 he served as a ships-boy and later worked as a jobber on the stock-exchange, 1880-84. He was called to the bar, the Middle Temple, in 1887.

Isaacs garnered fame in the Bayliss v. Coleridge libel suit in 1903, and the Whitaker Wright case in 1904. In 1904, he entered the House of Commons as Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP) for the Reading constituency, a seat he held until 1913. During this period, he served as both Solicitor General and Attorney-General in the government of Herbert Henry Asquith, becoming the first Attorney-General to sit in the Cabinet in 1912. He led for the prosecution in the Seddon poisoning case in 1912. In 1913, he was made Lord Chief Justice, a position in which he served until 1921.

In 1918, Isaacs was appointed Ambassador to the United States, a position in which he served until 1919, while continuing at the same time as Lord Chief Justice. In 1921, he resigned the chief justiceship to become Viceroy of India. Although he preferred a conciliatory policy, he ended up using force on several occasions, and imprisoned Mahatma Gandhi in 1922. In MacDonald’s National Government in August 1931, he briefly served as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but stood down after the first major reshuffle in November due to ill-health.

Isaacs lived at Foxhill House in Earley, adjoining Reading, and was elevated to the Peerage as Baron Reading, of Erleigh in the County of Berkshire, in 1914, and continued to rise in the Peerage: he was created Viscount Reading, of Erleigh in the County of Berkshire, in 1916; Earl of Reading along with the subsidiary title of Viscount Erleigh, of Erleigh in the County of Berkshire, in 1917; and eventually Marquess of Reading in 1926. This is the highest rank in the Peerage reached by a Jew in British history. He was knighted in 1910, made a KCVO in 1911, a GCB in 1915, a GCSI and GCIE in 1921 (upon appointment as Viceroy of India) and a GCVO in 1922

Isaacs married Alice Edith Cohen in 1887. Alice, Lady Reading, appointed GBE, was a chronic invalid, who eventually died of cancer in 1927, a year after Reading’s viceroyalty ended, after 40 years of marriage. He then married Stella Charnaud, the first Lady Reading’s secretary. Stella Isaacs was later made a life peeress as Baroness Swanborough, of Swanborough, County Sussex, and later a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE). His second marriage lasted until his own death in 1935.

Nelson’s Column, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

“Well, I’m a lonesome schoolboy”
“And I just came into town”

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: Pistil

Trafalgar Square, London

From Wikipedia:

Nelson’s Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in London built to commemorate the death of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The monument was constructed between 1840 and 1843 to a design by William Railton at a cost of £47,000. The sandstone statue of Nelson is by E. H. Baily and the four bronze lions on the base, added in 1867, were sculpted by Sir Edwin Landseer. The column itself is built of granite from Dartmoor.

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The column was built between 1840 and 1843 to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The monument was designed by architect William Railton in 1838, and built by the firm Peto & Grissell. Railton’s original 1:22-scale stone model is exhibited at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. The entire monument was built at a cost of £47,500, or £3.5 million in 2004 terms (roughly $6.1 million US).

The 5.5 m (18 ft) sandstone statue at the top was sculpted by E. H. Baily, a member of the Royal Academy, who also sculpted Earl Grey’s statue on top of Grey’s Monument in Newcastle; a small bronze plaque crediting him is at the base of the statue. The statue faces south looking towards the Admiralty and Portsmouth where Nelson’s & the Royal Navy Flagship HMS Victory is docked, with the Mall on his right flank, where Nelson’s ships are represented on the top of each flagpole.

The statue stands on top of a 46 m (151 ft) column built of granite from the Foggintor quarries on Dartmoor. The top of the Corinthian column (based on one from the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome) is decorated with bronze acanthus leaves cast from British cannon. The square pedestal is decorated with four bronze panels, cast from captured French guns, depicting Nelson’s four great victories. These panels were undertaken by the sculptors Musgrave Watson, John Ternouth, William F Woodington, and John Edward Carew. Part of the interior base was made from the 29 cannon recovered from HMS Royal George, HMS Victory’s sister ship. The four lions, by Sir Edwin Landseer, at the column’s base were added after much delay in 1867. In 1925 a Scottish confidence trickster, Arthur Furguson, “sold” the landmark to an unknowing American (he also “sold” Big Ben and Buckingham Palace). The column also had some symbolic importance to Adolf Hitler. If Hitler’s plan to invade Britain, Operation Sealion, had been successful, he planned to move it to Berlin.