Peter Kolbe (also referred to as Kolb and Kolben) (10 October 1675 in Marktredwitz – 31 December 1726 in Neustadt an der Aisch) was a German teacher, astronomer, ethnologist, traveller, and explorer of South Africa. His major work was the book Caput bonae spei hodiernum (1719) in which he provided detailed descriptions of Khoikhoi life which differed significantly in perception from the descriptions of earlier travellers. He compared European culture and beliefs with those of the Khoikhoi. An English translation, by Guido Medley, was published in 1731.

Life and work
Peter Kolbe was born in a village Dorflas just outside Marktredwitz near Bayreuth, the son of a blacksmith and customs collector. He was educated at Bayreuth, Redwitz and Wunsiedel. He received support from patrons after the death of his father and went to Nuremberg. In Nuremberg he worked from 1696 for the scholar Georg Christoph Eimmart who had built his own astronomical observatory. He chose Kolb as its conservator. Eimmart and his connections suggested that Kolbe should study at the University of Halle and he did so and studied natural sciences and oriental languages (mainly Hebrew). Education also included theology under August Hermann Francke (1663-1727). He received a doctorate in 1701 for a dissertation on comets. He subsequently gave lectures in mathematics and astronomy. He was offered a position in Moscow but became a private tutor to the sons of the Prussian Privy Councillor Baron Friedrich Freiherr von Krosick (1656-1714). Krosick sponsored his visit to the Cape of Good Hope to make astronomical observations, more particularly the determination of longitudes at sea. Kolbe was provided letters of introduction from Nicolaas Witsen, mayor of Amsterdam, with a mandate to compile a comprehensive description of South Africa and for astronomical and surveying research. Kolbe then sailed out of Texel in 1705 and returned only in 1712 as his eyesight deteriorated. He then received glasses from Christian Louis Göckel, a physician in Baden-Baden, which allowed him to continue reading and writing. In 1718 he worked in a grammar school in Neustadt and the next year he published in Nuremberg the Caput Bonae Spei Hodiernum (1719). Several translation were later made.

Work

Kolbe's book was produced in Nuremberg by Peter Conrad Monath. The book was dedicated to Margrave Georg Wilhelm of Ansbach-Bayreuth. His book was divided into three sections dealing with natural history, the social life of the Khoikhoi, and then the settler colony. The second part was considered the most interesting by most European readers.

Kolbe's description of the Cape fauna was also of some interest. In the Dutch edition, Naauwkeurige beschryving van de Kaap de Goede Hoop published in Amsterdam in 1727, his account devotes 45 pages to mammals, 22 to birds, 24 to fishes, and 20 pages to snakes, insects and other animals. As did a lot of writers of natural history at the time, he was prone to including exaggerated tales. His discovery and description of a giraffe elicited much interest in Europe, and even though Julius Caesar had brought one to Rome in about 46 BC, no reliable source had produced compelling proof of the existence of this rather improbable creature. He documented the raids of armed Europeans on the peaceful Khoikhoi villages. He wrote (translated) that "they would better have deserved the name of gangsters and highwaymen than that of traders. It is a harsh expression that I am using here; but their deeds deserve no milder term as surely the innocent blood that was shed still cries for revenge. For they arrived as friends but behaved themselves as enemies. Instead of the necessary and honest payment they grasped their muskets and fired on them (i. e. the Khoikhoi). They ran their sword through everyone who was in their way. Whole kraals or Hottentot villages were pillaged, and those who could not flee had to hide themselves here and there and seek safety in the face of the cruelty of their hostile friends."

Kolbe's book was translated into English in 1731 by Guido Medley. An abridgement was also published by Thomas Astley in 1746. Astley included a preface which he described Kolbe's discovery of the Khoikhoi to be "some of the most humane and virtuous (abating for a few Prejudices of Education) to be found among all the Race of Mankind." Kolbe considered his model travel writer to be Robert Knox who wrote on Ceylon.

"Several beautiful country seats, vineyards and gardens are to be seen on almost every side of the Table-Hill. The Company has here two very spacious, rich and beautiful Gardens. In one of them stands, erected at the Company's Expense, a noble Pleasure-House for the Governor, and near it a beautiful Grove of Oaks, called the Round-Bush from which this Garden (Rondebosch) takes its Name, being called the Round-Bush garden. The other Garden which is at some distance from this is called Newland because but lately planted. Both these gardens are finely watered by the Springs on the Table-Hill and the Company draws from them a very considerable Revenue."

Among the discoveries made from Kolbe's book has been the practice of milk stimulation in cows followed by the Khoikhoi. The suckling of calves stimulates the production of oxytocin but when the calf is lost or separated, milk production requires artificial stimulation. A woodcut in Kolbe's book shows the inflation of the cow's vagina in order to stimulate milk production.

Kolbe's book also provides early descriptions of Cape Town: "Several beautiful country seats, vineyards and gardens are to be seen on almost every side of the Table-Hill. The Company has here two very spacious, rich and beautiful Gardens. In one of them stands, erected at the Company's Expense, a noble Pleasure-House for the Governor, and near it a beautiful Grove of Oaks, called the Round-Bush from which this Garden (Rondebosch) takes its Name, being called the Round-Bush garden. The other Garden which is at some distance from this is called Newland because but lately planted. Both these gardens are finely watered by the Springs on the Table-Hill and the Company draws from them a very considerable Revenue."

References

External links

Caput bonae spei hodiernum (1719)
Beschreibung des Vorgebürges der guten Hoffnung und derer darauf wohnenden Hottentotten German edition (1745)
Description du cap de Bonne-Espérance (French translation) Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3 (1741)
Naauwkeurige beschryving van de Kaap de Goede Hoop (Dutch translation) Volume 1 Volume 2 (1727)
The present state of the Cape of Good Hope (1731) English translation by Guido Medley of Caput bonae spei hodiernum.

German ethnologists
German explorers
Explorers of Africa
1675 births
1726 deaths
People from Marktredwitz


USS Grundy (APA-111) was a Windsor-class attack transport that served with the United States Navy from 1945 to 1946. She was subsequently sold in to commercial service and was scrapped in 1973.

History
Grundy was launched under Maritime Commission contract 16 June 1944 by Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi; and commissioned 3 January 1945.

World War II
After loading supplies at New Orleans, the new transport conducted shakedown training out of Galveston, Texas, until 28 January 1945. She departed 4 February for her first assignment, as school ship for pre-commissioning crews at Newport, Rhode Island. Arriving Newport 10 February, Grundy held underway drills and training for the crews of nearly finished ships, helping to speed their delivery as active fighting units. This duty was completed 31 March, and Grundy sailed for Hampton Roads.

The ship arrived Norfolk, Virginia, 1 April and immediately embarked Seabees for transportation to the Pacific. Departing 14 April, she sailed to Pearl Harbor via the Panama Canal, arriving there 2 May 1945. At Pearl Harbor Grundy performed amphibious exercises and loaded cargo and passengers for the western Pacific. She departed 7 June; stopped at Eniwetok, Guam, and Saipan; and anchored 1 July at Ulithi to join an Okinawa-bound convoy.

Grundy departed in convoy for battle-scarred Okinawa 10 July, and after her arrival 4 days later unloaded her troops and cargo. She then sailed to Ulithi and Peleliu to bring troops from those islands to Guam, where she arrived 31 July. Grundy remained there until 2 August when she got underway for Pearl Harbor, unloading her supplies upon arrival 10 August. The war ended while Grundy was on her way to San Diego, where she arrived 19 August.

Her troop spaces loaded with replacement units, Grundy sailed from Seattle 1 September 1945, and after a stop at Eniwetok arrived Leyte 19 September. There she remained until 26 September, when the transport group of which she was a part departed for Yokohama with occupation troops. Arriving in Japan 4 days later, Grundy put ashore her contingent of the occupation forces, embarked veteran troops, and sailed for San Francisco 8 October. She arrived 19 October 1945.

Operation Magic Carpet
The busy transport's next duty was as part of the Magic-Carpet fleet, performing the gigantic task of returning the thousands of servicemen to the United States from the Pacific. Carrying replacement troops, she sailed 26 October for Okinawa, arriving 12 November. She then sailed for Shanghai, China, with troops to aid in the occupation and to help stabilize the tense situation there. Grundy arrived Shanghai 17 November, and sailed 23 November to embark a group of soldiers for transportation to Seattle from Korea. The transport sailed from Jinsen 5 December and arrived at her revised destination, Portland, Oregon, on Christmas Day 1945.

Decommissioning
Designated for return to the Maritime Commission, Grundy sailed via San Francisco and the Panama Canal to Norfolk, where she arrived 8 March 1946. She decommissioned 8 May, and was returned to the Maritime Commission 13 May.

Commercial service
The ship was subsequently acquired by Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., in 1948, and renamed Mormacsurf. At 10:45 p.m. on August 27, 1957, it collided with the passenger ship "Ciudad de Buenos Aires" in the Río de la Plata, causing the latter to sink in just twenty minutes and killing almost 100 people. In 1966 she was part of a six-ship west coast fleet sold to Grace Lines, serving as Santa Anita. She was scrapped in 1973.

References

External links

 APA-111 Grundy, Navsource Online.

https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/2020/08/27/tragedia-en-el-rio-de-la-plata-salvavidas-inservibles-naufragos-empetrolados-cien-muertos-y-un-suicidio-inexplicable/

https://www.icndiario.com/2023/08/a-66-anos-del-hundimiento-del-vapor-de-la-carrera-ciudad-de-buenos-aires-en-el-rio-uruguay/

Windsor-class attack transports
Type C3-S-A2 ships of the United States Navy
Ships built in Pascagoula, Mississippi
1944 ships
World War II amphibious warfare vessels of the United States
USS Grundy (APA-111)
USS Grundy (APA-111)
USS Grundy (APA-111)
USS Grundy (APA-111)


The Medway and its tributaries and sub-tributaries have been used for over 1,150 years as a source of power. There are over two hundred sites where the use of water power is known.
These uses included corn milling, fulling, paper making, iron smelting, pumping water, making gunpowder, vegetable oil extraction, and electricity generation.
Today, there is just one watermill working for trade. Those that remain have mostly been converted. Such conversions include a garage, dwellings, restaurants, museums and a wedding venue. Some watermills are mere derelict shells, lower walls or lesser remains. Of the majority, there is nothing to be seen.

Watermills
The River Medway powered a number of watermills. From source to mouth they were:

Fen Place (Bishes) Mill, Worth
TQ 361 366
The mill building survives in part, incorporated into a dwelling and retaining the waterwheel. The site may have been a hammer mill, witnessed by Ironmasters Cottage Wing mentioned in recent property sale particulars. The mill was known as Bishes Mill in 1598 John Awcock was the miller in 1841 and John Stanbridge was the miller in 1851, still there in 1867. The mill was then a corn mill.

Mill Place Foundry, East Grinstead
Another gun foundry site.

Brambletye (Castle) Mill, Forest Row.
TQ 4168 3527
A Domesday site, the last mill building dated from 1866, replacing the previous building that had burnt down. It had a brick base with timber above. The wooden overshot waterwheel drove three pairs of millstones. Although the mill was working in 1945 it had been demolished by 1968.

Tablehurst Mill, Forest Row
TQ 450 352
This mill was a mainly sixteenth century building. It is most likely to be the "Tellhurst Mill" that J. M. W. Turner sketched c.1795. It had two overshot waterwheels in tandem, with all wooden machinery. The mill ceased working in 1925 and had been demolished by 1936.

Parrock Forge, Hartfield
TQ 458 357
This forge was active during the reign of Henry VIII, when it was making "gunstones of iron". His Majesty was in arrears with payments for munitions supplied, leading to financial trouble for the ironmaster in 1530. Robert Scorer was the lessee in 1513, when it was owned by William Warner, the forge was sold to William Saunders in 1547. In 1574 the forge was owned by Lord Buckhurst and worked by George Bullen. In 1595, the Crown Gunfounder, Thomas Johnson was involved in a dispute here. At the time the forge was owned by William Garway, and is last recorded in the ownership of John Garway in 1600. The dam is recorded as  long and up to  high, although there is some evidence that it could have been as much as  long.

Hartfield Iron Mill
This forge was in existence in 1496, when its owner Thomas Wildgoose made his will. Its probable location was below Chartners Farm (square TQ4736).

Ashurst Mill
TQ 506 389
This mill was a corn mill. The last building was built c.1780. The mill was run for many years by the Everest & then the Caffyn families. John Everest was the Miller at the time of his death in 1790 when he was succeeded, in accordance with his will, by his eldest son Edward. The latter continued milling here until his death in 1831 when he left the mill, in his will, to his sons John & James. The Everests were still there at the time of the 1841 Census. Thomas Caffyn was the miller in 1851. New machinery was installed in 1887 at a cost of over £1,000. The mill was being run by Thomas Caffyn (son of 1851 Thomas), when it burnt down in September 1930. The waterwheel was  diameter by  wide.

Ashurst Furnace
TQ 507 390
This furnace stood just downstream of Ashurst Mill. It was operating between 1574 and 1599. It was owned by someone by the name of Stace in 1574, Sir Walter Waller in 1588–90 (occupied by John Phillips) and in 1599 Thomas Browne sold cannon here.

Chafford Mills, Fordcombe
This was a paper mill. There were two mills here in the thirteenth century, separated by a ford that passed through the tail race of the Upper Mill. The Upper Mill was removed c.1300 and as a result the ford became deep and impassable. In 1303, Henry de Cobham built a bridge at his own cost to replace the ford. This was swept away by a storm in 1337 and Thomas de Cobham (his son), erected a footbridge in its place. The Sheriff proceeded against Thomas for not rebuilding the bridge in its original form, and the Court agreed with the Sheriff. The site was used at one time as a fulling mill. A picture of the mill c.1850 can be seen here. Paper from Chafford Mills was used to print postage stamps for Jamaica, The Transvaal and the Falkland Islands. The mill closed in 1913 and was demolished in 1930. It was latterly driven by a turbine.

Pound Mill, Penshurst
This mill stood below Ford Place Farm. It was a corn mill powered by an overshot waterwheel.

Ensfield Mill
A long lost mill site. An agreement between Tonbridge Priory and the bishop of Rochester in 1353 mentions a mill at "Yenesfield" - the present day Ensfield Farm.

Ramhurst Mill, Leigh
TQ 566 463
In the 1428 will of Sir Thomas Colepeper it is referred to as the mill of Greenerssh. The mill was marked on a map dated 1579. The mill was marked as Crenhurst Mill on a map of 1769. Ramshurst Mill was marked on the 1801 Ordnance Survey map, but not on Greenwoods map dated 1821. In 1851, Henry Morgan was a millwright living at Ramhurst Mills, Leigh.

Powder Mills, Leigh (Tunbridge Gunpowder Works)
TQ 573 466
This was a gunpowder mill, established in 1811 by John Children and William Burton of Tonbridge. William was the brother of Decimus Burton. The Powder Mills cost £30,000 to set up. Humphry Davy was also involved at the start, but he soon withdrew. The Children family sold out to the Burton at the end of 1812. William Ford Burton managing the mills. In the early 1820s the Burton family bought the land, which had been leased initially. The site was known as the Tunbridge Gunpowder Works. In 1834, Thomas Wells of Powder Mills died and was buried at Penshurst. Three explosions were recorded in the years 1832-35, the last killing two people. In 1837, there were four mills, each taking water from the same pond. The available head of water was some , and the waterwheels were breastshot. Another explosion occurred in 1845, without loss of life. William Burton died in 1859, and the mills were put up for sale. They were bought by Charles and Thomas Curtis for £10,000. An explosion on 6 July 1864 killed four people. The firm was called Curtis's and Harvey by 1874. In this year, the transport of gunpowder along the River Medway ceased owing to the inhabitants of Maidstone fearing for their safety from the passage of the barges along the river. In 1878, there was an explosion that killed a man. Steam power having been added by this date. The mills were reworked in 1885 when another explosion killed a man. Cordite was being produced by this time and the manufacture of gunpowder ceased by 1897. Curtis's and Harvey became a public company in 1898. There was a tramway system around the site, probably introduced in 1885. The gauge was some . No locomotives were worked, all propulsion being by manual labour. An explosion in 1917 was caused by a lightning strike. After World War I, production was cut back, and Curtis's and Harveys had become part of Explosives Trade Ltd, which became Nobel Industries Ltd in 1920. Nobel Industries became part of Imperial Chemical Industries. Another explosion in 1927 killed several people. Production ceased in 1934, with the manufacturing of explosives being transferred to Ardeer in Scotland. Many of the buildings were burnt down. In 1942, the site was bought by T G East and Son, and developed as a small pharmaceutical works. In 1952, the site came into the ownership of Smith Kline and French, which later became Smith Kline Beecham and then Glaxo Smith Kline. The site is now used for pharmaceutical research and is still known as Powder Mills to this day.

Town Mill, Tonbridge
TQ 596 467
An old corn mill site. The mill house survives along with a few walls of the mill, which had a breastshot waterwheel. In 2006 Tonbridge Civic Society gave an award to a new-build house that incorporated the mill remains.

Branbridges Mill, East Peckham
TQ 673 485
This mill was known as "Brantbridge Mill" in 1538, being then valued at £2.6s.8d., owned by Sir Thomas Wyatt. In later years it was run by the Arnold family, who were previously at Bartley Mill, Frant. They took the mill in 1890, and the mill was marked as an oil mill on that year's 25" Ordnance Survey map. The waterwheel was replaced by a turbine, then that was replaced by a gas engine, in turn being replaced by an oil engine. Flour production ceased c.1917 and provender milling ceased c.1947. The mill was burnt down in the 1960s.

Hampstead Mill, Yalding
TQ 688 501 approx
One of two Domesday sites in Yalding, this was a paper mill in 1872. The site was first used as a chemical works just before the First World War, and eventually became part of ICI.

Friars Mill, Aylesford
This was a corn mill, serving Aylesford Friary.

Borstal Mill
An old tide mill site. The mill was the property of the See of Rochester in 1323, being rebuilt by Hamo de Hethe in that year.

Cuxton Mill.
This was a tide mill.

Priory Mill, Rochester
This was a tide mill. It stood at the end of George Lane near the town walls. The mill was demolished in the seventeenth century.

Strood Tide Mill
TQ 740 690
The site of this mill is marked by Water Mill Wharf, north of the railway bridge. It belonged to Temple Strood Manor and in the mid-fourteenth century contained "two water mills under one roof". An engraving by S & N Buck dated 1721 shows the mill, and it appears in "A Distant View of Rochester and Chatham" by Joshua Farington, RA, in 1790. A sketch by W H Reynolds shows the mill in greater detail, and was done at a later date. The mill had two undershot waterwheels and was valued in the Church Rate Books of 1764 at £64.1s.1d. Latterly a steam engine was installed to enable the mill to work for longer periods. The mill was demolished in 1858. Latterly it drove five pairs of millstones, one wheel worked two pairs of French Burr stones and one pair of Peak stones. The other wheel worked two pairs of French Burr stones, wheat cleaners, flour dressers and the sack hoist.

Chatham Tide Mill
TQ 757 683
There was a tide mill marked on 1575/1610 maps of the Brook area of Chatham, where the Old Bourne River entered the Medway. By 1765, the Mill is not on the map and the river had been canalised, running alongside the road known as the Brook, and soon after it had been culverted.

Watermills on the tributaries
The vast majority of the watermills were on the tributaries. The watermills on the tributaries feeding in above Penshurst are covered in the upper tributaries article, while those watermills on the tributaries feeding in between Penshurst and Yalding are covered in the middle tributaries article. Those on the tributaries feeding in below Yalding are covered in the lower tributaries article.

Sources
 =

References

Further reading

Donald Maxwell. Unknown Kent (G. P. Putnam's sons, 1922) pp. 13–32.

Rivers of Kent
Rivers of Sussex
Watermills in Kent
Lists of watermills


Maćedonce is a village in the municipality of Medveđa, Serbia. According to the 2011 census, the village has a population of 177 inhabitants.

Population

References

Populated places in Jablanica District


Dreuil-lès-Amiens (, literally Dreuil near Amiens; Picard: Dréeuil-lès-Anmien) is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

Geography
The commune, a suburb of Amiens, is situated on the banks of the river Somme. Dreuil-lès-Amiens station has rail connections to Amiens and Abbeville.

Population

See also
Communes of the Somme department

References

Communes of Somme (department)


Russian Internet Forum (RIF) is the annual conference where people who feel they build the Runet meet.

Those include members of Russian telecom and software industries, representatives of various Internet businesses and state institutions such as Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications (FAPMC), Ministry for Economic Development and Trade, Ministry for Communications and Informatization of the Russian Federation.

The event is held every year in March or April since 1997 and usually lasts 3 days. The main site for it is the rest home complex "Lesnye Dali" (Forest Expanses), which is operated by the Affair Management Office of the President of the Russian Federation, in Gorky-10 settlement in the Odintsovo district of Moscow Oblast.

In 2003 a simultaneous subsidiary conference was also held in Perm city. Since 2006 a RIF-related series of smaller conferences is held in 10 large Russian cities under the brand of "All-Russian Internet Marathon".

There are several sponsors, the main organizer of the event is the non-profit organization ROCIT (Regional Social Center for Internet Technologies) which is related to FAPMC and also organizes the Runet Prize.

On April 3, 2008, the 12th RIF was opened by the president-elect of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev.

External links
 RIF website
 ROCIT website

Internet in Russia


James Edward Cheek (December 4, 1932 – January 8, 2010) was president emeritus of Howard University. He was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.

Howard University President (1968–1989)
In 1989, Cheek appointed Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater as a member of the Howard University Board of Trustees. Students rose up in protest against Atwater's appointment, disrupting Howard's 122nd anniversary celebrations, and eventually occupied the university's administration building. Within days, both Atwater and Cheek resigned.

Personal life
Cheek was married to the former Celestine Williams, and had two children. He died on January 8, 2010, from complications of coronary artery disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

References

External links
 Shaw University Learning Resources Center Named in Honor of James E. Cheek

1932 births
2010 deaths
American theologians
Presidents of Howard University
African-American United States Air Force personnel
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
United States Air Force personnel of the Korean War
Shaw University alumni
Drew University alumni
Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School faculty
People from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina
Presidents of Shaw University


Palm Bay is a bay located in Palm Bay, Florida, United States and is bordered to the south by the Palm Bay Pointe peninsula. It is an estuary of Indian River, and Turkey Creek drains into Palm Bay. Pioneers initially settled in Palm Bay as they moved into the area in the late 19th century. The city of Palm Bay received its name from this bay.

References

Bays of Florida on the Atlantic Ocean
Indian River Lagoon
Bodies of water of Brevard County, Florida
Palm Bay, Florida


Learndirect Ltd, stylised as learndirect, is a British training provider founded in 2000, owned by the private equity firm Queens Park Equity. The company has a network of learning centres in England and Wales, and also runs some courses online.

By 2006 the organisation was assisting half a million learners per year, and in January 2013 the cumulative number was in excess of 3.5 million.

In March 2017, Ofsted inspectors gave the company the lowest possible rating as a result of poor management processes, leading the company to seek judicial review and an injunction stopping the publication of this poor result.  The court lifted the reporting restriction on 14 August 2017.  Subsequently, the Department for Education stated that it would withdraw all funding from Learndirect, placing the future of the organisation at risk.

History
Learndirect was formerly owned by the Ufi Charitable Trust, a not-for-profit organisation which sold Learndirect and its parent Ufi Limited to LDC in 2011. Ufi was created in 1998 to take forward HM Government's stated vision of a 'University for Industry' in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and launched Learndirect in 2000. Learndirect Scotland was the public-facing brand of the Scottish University for Industry, but has since become part of Skills Development Scotland as 'My World of Work'. Learndirect still operates in Scotland, and has offices in Glasgow.

The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts undertook a review of the programme in 2005–2006; it found that the programme had received a total of £930 million in public funding, and was critical of the poor involvement of businesses, the high cost of marketing, and the low number of learners recorded as meeting their training objectives.

Ufi announced in late 2009 that it would be unable to sustain the large network of centres due to proposed budget cuts. An agreement was subsequently reached with the newly established Skills Funding Agency, allowing for a smaller network of centres, with the closure of some between July and August 2010.

Ufi were contracted by the Skills Funding Agency to deliver agreed targets in respect of qualifications achieved by learners, as well as a raft of quality, equality, and other indirect targets. However, following the May 2010 general election in which the Labour government was replaced by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, the future of Learndirect became unclear. Funding for English as a foreign or second language through Learndirect centres ceased in July 2010.

According to The Independent, Ufi was included in a list compiled by the new government of quangos which it sought to abolish. The company and the Learndirect brand were then bought by LDC, part of Lloyds Banking Group, on 4 October 2011. Learndirect thus became an independent training provider competing in the open market and Ufi Ltd became a charitable trust. Learndirect Scotland became part of Skills Development Scotland and was renamed "My World of Work".

Learndirect participated as a provider in the UK government's mandatory unpaid work experience programme for those on Jobseeker's Allowance, in place between 2011 and 2017. The scheme was commonly known as "workfare", and formally by Learndirect and the Department of Work and Pensions as Mandatory Work Activity.

Between 2012 and 2015, Learndirect’s profits declined 85%, while student failure rates doubled in its educational programmes, and achievement rates for its apprenticeships dropped below Ofsted's 62% minimum to qualify for grants.  During this period, 84% of Learndirect's profits were redirected to its parent firm to pay for dividends, debt-servicing, and legal fees, as well as half a million pounds to sponsor the Marussia F1 racing team.

2017 Ofsted inspection and aftermath
In March 2017, the Education & Skills Funding Agency (EFSA) issued a "notice of serious breach" against Learndirect for 70% of its apprenticeship services not meeting state-required minimums. This was followed in the same month by an inspection by Ofsted, with publication of the report delayed until after the 2017 snap election.

Learndirect sought judicial review of the report, on grounds that the sample size was insufficient and the lead inspector had predetermined the outcome; Learndirect requested and obtained a publishing injunction during the proceedings.  In filings for this injunction, the managing director of Learndirect claimed that the Skills Funding Agency said it would serve three months notice on all its contracts if its Ofsted rating were to stand.

In August 2017, the High Court lifted the injunction and the report was published. Ofsted's overall effectiveness rating was 'inadequate', with five areas rated 'requires improvement' and two – 'outcomes for learners' and 'apprenticeships' – rated 'inadequate'. Ofsted noted positive changes in the last year, leading to early signs of improvement.

The EFSA decided to continue funding Learndirect for the 2017/18 academic year, then withdraw funding from July 2018. Funding of Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd, paid by large employers through the Apprenticeship Levy (which began in April 2017) is not affected. The National Audit Office published an investigation into the monitoring, inspection and funding of Learndirect in December 2017.

According to BBC reports in September 2017, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee said Learndirect should face an investigation after its Ofsted rating. The committee's enquiry Funding of Learndirect Ltd began in January 2018.

Changes of ownership
In June 2018, as Learndirect drew close to insolvency, Lloyds Development Capital sold the company for a nominal sum to Dimensions Training Solutions (DTS), part of the privately-held Stonebridge Group. DTS is a work-based training provider established in Yorkshire in 1983, which was acquired by Stonebridge in 2015.

In February 2020, a reorganisation saw the name of Stonebridge Colleges (Publishing) Limited changed to Learndirect Limited. In August 2020, Learndirect Digital Holdings Limited was created in order to acquire Learndirect Limited, Stonebridge Associated Colleges Limited and related businesses. The ultimate owner is Queens Park Equity Partners, a Guernsey-based private equity investor.

Services provided
Learndirect offers courses, training and employment services. In August 2017, the number of enrolled trainees was reported as 73,000.

In 2004, an average of 65% of students completed their courses but this figure had improved to 92% by 2009.

Learndirect administers the "Life in the United Kingdom" test, for candidates for British citizenship, on behalf of UK Visas and Immigration, a division of the Home Office.

Acquisitions
In March 2021, Learndirect acquired two training companies, one that specializes in animal welfare training and another, i-to-i, which specializes in teaching English as a foreign language.

References

External links

 Ufi Charitable Trust
 Online Centres Network

Companies based in Bournemouth
Education companies established in 2000
Training companies of the United Kingdom
Virtual learning environments


Dury () is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

Geography
Dury is situated on the N1 road, some  south of Amiens town centre.

Population

See also
Communes of the Somme department

References

Communes of Somme (department)


Maxwell Graham Hebditch  (born 22 August 1937) was Director of the Museum of London in London, England.

He was born on 22 August 1937 in the Yeovil area, the son of Harold and Lily (née Bartle) Hebditch.

He was appointed the first Field Archaeologist of Leicester Museum service from 1961 to 1965, when he was made Assistant Curator of Archaeology at Bristol Museum, becoming their Curator of Agriculture and Social History in 1969. In 1970 he moved to London to become Director of the Guildhall Museum and from 1977 to 1997 was director of the new Museum of London. He was also president of the UK Museums Association; and from 1977 to 1979 president of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society.

In 2000, after retiring from the Museum of London, he became honorary curator at the Philpot Museum in Lyme Regis, Dorset and was Chair of the Taunton Cultural Consortium. He now lives in Dorchester.

Selected works
 1958 Towards the future of London's past.
 1968 Excavations on the medieval defences, Portwall Lane, Bristol, 1965
 1973 The Forum and Basilica of Roman Leicester

References

1937 births
Living people
English architectural historians
Directors of the Museum of London
English curators
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London


TxT is a 2006 Filipino supernatural horror film directed by Michael Tuviera and starring Angel Locsin, Dennis Trillo, Oyo Sotto, Julia Clarete, Dante Rivero and Eugene Domingo. It was Tuviera's debut film as a director.

Plot
Joyce, a caregiver in an elderly home, breaks up with her obsessive boyfriend, Roman. As a final request, Roman asks Joyce to drive him home with his car. The two meet an accident killing Roman and injuring Joyce.

Alex, a call center agent with  feelings for Joyce, comforts Joyce after the accident. Days later, Joyce receives messages in her cellphone from Roman's number but dismisses it as a cruel prank. Roman's haunting continues by sending Joyce images of her current activities. Roman's haunting becomes more disturbing when Joyce starts receiving messages containing images of her acquaintances dead at exactly 3:29 am.

Aling Kuring, a restaurant owner and one of the people in the images, receives a call from Roman. Thinking it as a prank, Kuring answers the phone causing her head to shake violently to death. Lilia, Joyce's patient, is under the latter's constant watch after Joyce receives a text from Roman showing Lilia's death. Before 3:29 am, Joyce falls asleep and her phone begins to ring, waking up Lilia. Unable to wake Joyce, Lilia answers the call, killing her the same way Kuring died.

Joyce realizes that Roman is killing the people who did not support their relationship. She seeks the help of Dante, an anting-anting vendor and witch doctor. Dante asks Joyce if Roman did occult activities and asked for some of his possessions. Joyce breaks into Roman's room but is caught by Roman's mother Edith, who blames her for her son's death. Joyce receives another message from Roman showing an image of her best friend and next target, Ida. Joyce asks Ida to apologize to Roman for not supporting their relationship in an attempt to persuade Roman not to kill her. Instead, Ida berates Roman in his grave. Later, Joyce is arrested for trespassing and is detained for the night upon Edith's request. Joyce bribes a policeman with a cellphone in order to escape and asks for help to protect Ida. Joyce reaches Ida in the latter's home and waits for the police to arrive. However, their chief orders them to respond to a nearby accident. Joyce, in a panic as the police are diverted, leaves Ida alone in her room, where she is killed by Roman.

Joyce obtains some of Roman's possessions, his bloodied phone and a piece of paper containing a picture of him with Joyce together surrounded by incantations and symbols through Edith. Joyce gives these objects to Dante. It is revealed that while driving before the accident Roman forced Joyce to perform a pact by spilling drops of their blood over Roman's phone. The ensuing struggle caused the accident. While Dante further analyzes the other object, Joyce receives another message from Roman showing Joyce and Alex in a car accident causing Joyce to flee. Alex follows Joyce and the two argue. Joyce, wanting Alex not to be involved, tries to dissuade him but Alex insists to be with her eventually confessing his feelings for her.

Dante realizes that the incantation written on the paper means "shadow" and warns Joyce through a text that Roman's spirit follows her through her shadow. Roman takes over Joyce's body and forces her to ride the car with Alex. Roman knocks both of them unconscious and takes control of the car. Dante, driving a car, tries to warn Joyce through the phone causing him to collide with the car containing Joyce and Alex. Dante's car falls off the cliff and Joyce's car crashes in a nearby post. Joyce tries to save Dante but it is too late. Dante however manages to write the warning by typing a text message warning Joyce that Roman will take over Alex's body. Alex emerges from the top of the cliff and as Joyce cries for mercy while lightning strikes, he appears closer revealing Roman has successfully possessed him.

Cast
 Angel Locsin as Joyce
 Dennis Trillo as Alex
 Richard Gutierrez as Alex posses by Roman
 Oyo Sotto as Roman
 Julia Clarete as Ida
 Dante Rivero as Dante
 Eugene Domingo as Aling Kuring
 Bing Loyzaga as Edith
 Lorenzo Mara as Allan
 Perla Bautista as Lola Lilia
 Allan K. as Quiapo Seller 1
 Roselle Gabriel as Quiapo Seller 2
 Bubbles Cristobal as Quiapo Buyer
 Mitoy Sta. Ana as SP01 Moya
 Malou Crisologo as Hospice Administrator
 Bong Dela Torre as Father Javier
 Karla Pambid as Ida's mother
 Jim Pebangco as Ida's father
 Luz Imperial as Beth
 Emelyn Santos as Maid 2
 Rene Mendoza as Mortician
 Eddie Boy Tuviera as Joey
 Paul Daza as Mourner 1
 Edgar Allan Guzman as Kanto Boy
 Ryan Julio as Kanto Boy
 Macky Aquino as Texting Carinderia Patron
 John Medina as Carinderia Patron 1
 Ryan Forbes as Carinderia Patron 2
 Jojo Oconer as Carinderia Patron 3
 Bo Vicencio as Carinderia Patron 4
 Cora Galdo as Jeep Passenger
 Mohammad Dana as Flirting Waiter
 Jeff Geraldine Vedeja as Coffee Shop Waitress
 Charles Edward Martinez as Call Center Employee

Reception
Txt was rated "A" by the Cinema Evaluation Board for its 'excellent' and 'brilliant' cinematography. However it bombed at the Philippine box office.

See also
 List of ghost films

References

External links
 Click The City review
 Regal DVD page

2006 horror films
2006 films
Philippine horror films
Philippine mystery films
2000s mystery films
Philippine ghost films
Regal Entertainment films
Films directed by Mike Tuviera


The prime minister of Serbia and Montenegro was the head of government of Serbia and Montenegro from its establishment in 1992 up until the state's dissolution in 2006. Between 1992–2003 the full name of the office was President of the Federal Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (), while after the constitutional reforms of 2003 the title was Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Serbia and Montenegro (, literally translated as President of the Council of Ministers of Serbia and Montenegro). The office was merged in 2003 with the head of state, providing for one person to hold both the office of President of Serbia and Montenegro and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Serbia and Montenegro.

Prime ministers
There were five presidents of the Federal Government of the FR Yugoslavia after its assertion of independence from the SFR Yugoslavia (SFRY) in 1992 up until its dissolution in 2003. Svetozar Marović of the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro was the only chairman of the Council of Ministers of Serbia and Montenegro after its constitutional reforms and reconstitution as a confederacy. He was inaugurated on March 7, 2003. After the declaration of independence of Montenegro, on June 3, 2006, the chairman of the Council of Ministers announced on June 4, 2006 the termination of his office.

Timeline

See also
 Politics of Serbia and Montenegro
 President of Serbia and Montenegro
 Prime Minister of Yugoslavia
 Prime Minister of Montenegro
 Prime Minister of Serbia

References

Serbia and Montenegro
Prime Ministers of Serbia and Montenegro
1992 establishments in Yugoslavia
2006 disestablishments in Serbia and Montenegro


Dromesnil (; ) is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

Geography
Dromesnil is situated on the D157 road, some  west of Amiens.

Population

See also
Communes of the Somme department

References

Communes of Somme (department)


Radical is the fourth and final studio album by Finnish rock band Smack. It was released in 1988.

Singles
 "Mad Animal Shuffle"
 "I Want Somebody"

Track listing

Original album
 "Set Me Free"
 "I Want Somebody"
 "Little Sister"
 "Mad About You"
 "You're All I Have"
 "Mad Animal Shuffle"
 "Street Hog Blues"
 "Wonderful Ride"
 "Strange Kinda Fever"
 "Russian Fields"

Personnel
 Claude (singer) – vocals
 Manchuria (guitarist) – guitar
 Rane (guitarist) – guitar
 Jimi Sero – bass
 Kinde (drummer) – drums

External links
 Smack

1988 albums
Smack (Finnish band) albums


Ieronymos II (, ; born 10 March 1938) is the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece and as such the primate of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece. He was elected on 7 February 2008.

Ieronymos served as Protosyncellus of the Metropolis of Thebes and Livadeia, abbot of the monasteries of the Transfiguration of Sagmata and Hosios Loukas, and Secretary, later Archsecretary, of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece. In 1981 he was elected Metropolitan Bishop of Thebes and Levadeia. He published two major textbooks: "Medieval Monuments of Euboea" (1970), and "Christian Boeotia" (2006).

On 7 February 2008, Ieronymos was elected the new Archbishop of Athens and All Greece by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, He formally took office on 16 February 2008.

Early life and background
Ieronymos was born in Oinofyta, Boeotia and is of Arvanite descent.

Ieronymos holds degrees in archaeology, Byzantine studies, and theology from the University of Athens. He has undertaken postgraduate studies at the University of Graz, the University of Regensburg and the University of Munich.

Following a stint as lector in Christian archaeology at the Athens Archaeological Society under professor Anastasios Orlandos, he taught as a philologist in Lycée Léonin and he was ordained deacon and then presbyter in the Orthodox Church in 1967.

Titles

The official title of the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece is:

His Beatitude Ieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece;

in Greek:

 Η Αυτού Μακαριότης ο Αρχιεπίσκοπος Αθηνών και Πάσης Ελλάδος Ιερώνυμος Β'

Ecclesiastical affairs
Ieronymos served as Protosyncellus of the Metropolis of Thebes and Livadeia, abbot of the monasteries of the Transfiguration of Sagmata and Hosios Loukas, and Secretary, later Archsecretary, of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece. In 1981 he was elected Metropolitan Bishop of Thebes and Levadeia. In addition to his pastoral ministry, Ieronymos has been pursuing his work on Christian archaeology and has published two major textbooks: "Medieval Monuments of Euboea" (1970), and "Christian Boeotia" (2006). In 1998, he unsuccessfully contested the election to the throne of the archbishopric of Athens.

On 7 February 2008, Ieronymos was elected the new Archbishop of Athens and All Greece by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, receiving 45 out of 74 votes in a two-ballot process. He formally took office on 16 February 2008.

Social and political views

In 2012, Ieronymos criticized racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Golden Dawn party, saying that "The church loves all people, including those who are black, white or non-Christians."

On 16 April 2016, he visited, together with Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the Mòria camp in the island of Lesbos, to call the attention of the world to the refugee crisis.

Notes and references

Bintliff, John (2003), "The Ethnoarchaeology of a "Passive" Ethnicity: The Arvanites of Central Greece" in K.S. Brown and Yannis Hamilakis, eds., The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories, Lexington Books. .

External links

Archdiocese of Athens Official website

|-

1937 births
Living people
People from Boeotia
Arvanites
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens alumni
University of Graz alumni
University of Regensburg alumni
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
Archbishops of Athens and All Greece
Eastern Orthodox Christians from Greece
21st-century Eastern Orthodox archbishops
Eastern Orthodox theologians
20th-century Eastern Orthodox bishops
Bishops of Thebes, Greece
20th-century Greek historians
Recipients of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 3rd class
Recipients of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 1st class
21st-century Greek historians


Tan Zhongyi (; born 29 May 1991) is a Chinese chess player who holds the title of grandmaster (GM). She is a former Women's World Champion, winning the 2017 knockout edition of the world championship in Iran where she defeated Anna Muzychuk in the final. Tan is the reigning Women's World Rapid Champion. She is the three-time reigning Chinese women's national champion, and is a four-time national champion overall with titles in 2015, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

Career
Tan was born in Chongqing. In 1997, she started learning to play chess.  She won the World Youth U10 Girls Chess Championship twice, in 2000 and 2001, both held in Oropesa del Mar. In 2002, she won the World Youth U12 Girls Chess Championship in Heraklion.

In August–September 2008 at the Women's World Chess Championship she was knocked out in the second round by Pia Cramling by ½-1½.

In 2011, she won the women's chess tournament at the 2011 Summer Universiade in Shenzhen, contributing to China's team gold medal.
Tan won the Women's World University Chess Championship of 2012 in Guimarães. In 2013, she won the 3rd China Women Masters Tournament in Wuxi with a score of 6.5/9 points, 1.5 ahead of runners-up Valentina Gunina and Huang Qian. In 2014 Tan won the Asian Women's Blitz Championship in Sharjah.

In May 2015 she won the Chinese Women's Chess Championship in Xinghua. The following month, Tan won the 5th China Women Masters Tournament with 7/9, a full point ahead of second-placed Lei Tingjie. In August 2015, she won the Asian Women's Rapid Championship in Al Ain. On December 1, 2015, Tan Zhongyi won the 1st China Chess Queen Match, a knockout tournament held in Taizhou, Zhejiang, after defeating Ju Wenjun in the final in an armageddon game.

She won the women's gold medal for board 4 at the 42nd Chess Olympiad in 2016.

She reached the final of the Women's World Chess Championship 2017 against GM Anna Muzychuk. They finished the classical games 2-2 with one win each, sending the match to a rapid tie-break. Tan won the two-game tie-break by drawing the first game with Black and then winning the second game with White, and thus became Women's World Champion. This also earned her the title of Grandmaster.

She lost the Women's World Champion title to Ju Wenjun at the Women's World Chess Championship Match 2018.

In 2020, she won the women's top prize at the Gibraltar Masters.

In 2021, Tan achieved third place in the Women's Chess World Cup after winning against Anna Muzychuk with a score of 2.5 - 1.5.

In 2022, Tan won the Women's World Rapid Championship in Almaty, Kazakhstan, after defeating local player Dinara Saduakassova in the tiebreaker.

China Chess League
Tan Zhongyi plays for China Mobile Group Chongqing Company Ltd chess club in the China Chess League (CCL).

Personal life
She graduated from the School of Law of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in 2009.

See also
Chess in China

References

External links

Sohu Profile

1991 births
Living people
Chinese female chess players
Chinese chess players
World Youth Chess Champions
Chess grandmasters
Female chess grandmasters
Chess woman grandmasters
Chess players from Chongqing
Women's world chess champions
Chess players at the 2022 Asian Games
Asian Games competitors for China
Universiade medalists in chess
FISU World University Games gold medalists for China
Universiade bronze medalists for China
Medalists at the 2011 Summer Universiade
Medalists at the 2013 Summer Universiade
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics alumni


Tacony may refer to:

Companies
 Tacony Corporation, a St. Louis, Missouri-based manufacturer and wholesale distributor of vacuum cleaners, sewing machines, ceiling fans, and commercial floor care equipment

Places
 Tacony, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an area of northeast Philadelphia
 Tacony (SEPTA station), a railroad station in the Tacony section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
 Tacony Creek, a creek in Philadelphia, which is also known as Tookany Creek and Frankford Creek along different portions of its course
 Tacony Music Hall, an historic building in the Tacony section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
 Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, a bridge connecting Palmyra, New Jersey and the Tacony section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
 Tacony Plantation in Vidalia, Louisiana, US

Ships
 CSS Tacony, a Confederate naval vessel in commission briefly in June 1863
 USS Tacony, the name of more than one ship of the United States Navy

Sports
 Tacony Disston, an early twentieth-century U.S. soccer team from Tacony, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


Levan Kenia (; born 18 October 1990) is a Georgian professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for German club KFC Uerdingen.

Club career
Kenia joined Schalke 04 from Lokomotivi Tbilisi in January 2008, signing a contract with the club that ran until June 2012 Kenia made his debut for Schalke 04 against APOEL F.C. in a UEFA Cup match on 2 October 2008 coming on as a 65th-minute substitute for Gerald Asamoah. Formerly, Kenia trained for two weeks at the age of 14 with FC Barcelona.

On 11 April 2009, Kenia made his Bundesliga debut for Schalke in a match against Karlsruher SC.

On 14 August 2012, Kenia joined Ukrainian Premier League side FC Karpaty Lviv on a two-year contract. After spending one year in Ukraine, Kenia returned to Germany and signed a contract with Fortuna Düsseldorf for two years.

At Düsseldorf however he could never fulfill the expectations. Signed as the playmaker, he played only eleven games during the 2013–14 season. In the second half of the campaign he even earned just a single cap playing four minutes. On 1 July 2014, according to previous rumors, it was announced that his contract was dissolved.

In the summer of 2018, he joined a Luxembourgian club Dudelange.

In 2021 he joined German Regionalliga club KFC Uerdingen as playing assistant.

International career
Kenia made his debut for the national team on 8 September 2007 against Ukraine, replacing Alexander Iashvili. Georgia's former head coach Klaus Toppmöller said he had never before seen a player of his age with such accomplished technical abilities. Kenia, along with fellow teenagers Levan Mchedlidze and Giorgi Makaridze, played in their UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying campaign starring in a 2–0 victory over Scotland. Toppmöller praised Kenia, "Kenia was one of the best on the pitch."

He scored his first international goal on 27 May 2008 against Estonia.

Personal life
Levan is also the nephew of former SC Freiburg midfielder Georgi Kiknadze.

Career statistics

Club

International

Scores and results list Georgia's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Kenia goal.

References

External links

1990 births
Footballers from Tbilisi
Living people
Men's footballers from Georgia (country)
Men's association football midfielders
Georgia (country) men's international footballers
Georgia (country) men's under-21 international footballers
FC Locomotive Tbilisi players
FC Schalke 04 players
FC Schalke 04 II players
FC Karpaty Lviv players
Fortuna Düsseldorf players
SK Slavia Prague players
F91 Dudelange players
FC Saburtalo Tbilisi players
KFC Uerdingen 05 players
Erovnuli Liga players
Bundesliga players
2. Bundesliga players
Ukrainian Premier League players
Czech First League players
Luxembourg National Division players
Regionalliga players
Oberliga (football) players
Expatriate men's footballers from Georgia (country)
Expatriate sportspeople from Georgia (country) in Germany
Expatriate men's footballers in Germany
Expatriate sportspeople from Georgia (country) in Ukraine
Expatriate men's footballers in Ukraine
Expatriate sportspeople from Georgia (country) in the Czech Republic
Expatriate men's footballers in the Czech Republic
Expatriate sportspeople from Georgia (country) in Luxembourg
Expatriate men's footballers in Luxembourg


George Pickingill (c. 1816 – 10 April 1909) was an English farm labourer who lived and worked in the village of Canewdon in the eastern English county of Essex. Widely considered to be a cunning man, or vocational folk magician, he reportedly employed magical means to offer cures for ailments and to locate lost property, although was also alleged to have threatened to place curses on people.

Born into a rural working-class family, Pickingill grew up in Hockley, Essex and was baptised into the Church of England. Working as a farm labourer, in 1856 he married Sarah Ann Bateman in Gravesend, Kent. The couple moved back to Essex, settled in Canewdon and had four children. Pickingill's wife died in 1887, and in later life he attracted limited press attention for his claim to be one of the oldest men in England. These claims also appeared in his obituaries, although were later shown to be incorrect.

Pickingill was brought to wider public attention in the early 1960s by the folklorist Eric Maple. As part of his research into beliefs regarding folk magic and witchcraft in nineteenth-century Essex, Maple had interviewed a number of Canewdon residents and collected their stories about Pickingill and his reputation as a cunning man. According to their accounts, Pickingill attracted visitors from around Essex seeking his magical help, for which he did not charge. They attributed to him the power to control animals, to command imps to do his bidding, and to wield power over either six or nine malevolent witches who lived in Canewdon. It was also claimed that he was able to coerce assistance and beer from local residents by threatening to place a curse upon them or their belongings. Although it has been suggested that local people were inventing claims to please Maple, many of which were based on older tales regarding the Essex cunning man James Murrell, subsequent research by historian Ronald Hutton has confirmed aspects of the folklorist's original accounts.

In the 1970s, the occultist E.W. "Bill" Liddell began publicising claims that secretive hereditary witch families had informed him that Pickingill was not simply a rural cunning man but that he was a major figure in the nineteenth-century esoteric community. According to Liddell's account—which has failed to receive any scholarly support—Pickingill was a member of a hereditary witch-cult, leading a Canewdon coven and forming nine other covens across southern England. Liddell claimed that Pickingill reformed the established English witch-cult by introducing new concepts from French and Danish witchcraft and from Classical sources, and that in doing so, Pickingill created the structure from which Gardnerian Wicca emerged in the 1950s. Prominent Wiccans Doreen Valiente and Lois Bourne have expressed criticism of his claims, which have also been rejected as spurious by such historians and scholars of religion as Maple, Hutton, Owen Davies, and Aidan A. Kelly.

Biography

Life and family

George Pickingill was the son of Charles Pickingill, a labourer and blacksmith, and Susannah Cudner, a woman who also went by the name of Hannah Cudmore; the couple had married on 17 September 1813. Although he had no known birth record, according to parish records, George Pickingill was baptised on 26 May 1816 at the church in Hockley. The year of Pickingill's birth is however in question, as he made differing claims in different censuses; in the 1851 census, he claimed to be 26, meaning that his birth would have occurred circa 1825, while in the 1861 census, he claimed to be 46, which would have placed his birth c.1815. By the time of the 1901 census, he was claiming to be 95, moving his birth to c.1806; it has been suggested that he made himself appear older to ease the process of collecting parish assistance from the church. Throughout his life, Pickingill would also use a variety of different spellings of his surname on official records, including Pickengill, Pickingale, Pickengal, Pettingale, Pitengale, and Pittengale.

It is apparent from census data that Pickingill lived with his parents from 1816 until the 1830s, although it is not stated where he was living at the time of the 1841 census. In 1851, he was recorded as lodging in the household of David Clemens in Little Wakering, Essex, and describing himself as a farm labourer by profession. On 18 May 1856 he married Sarah Ann Bateman at St George's Church, an Anglican church in Gravesend, Kent. In that record, both Pickingill and Bateman described themselves as residing in Gravesend, and Pickingill declared that he was working as a labourer; no profession was listed for Bateman. Bateman was born c.1831 in Tillingham, Essex, as the daughter of Joseph Bateman and his wife Mary Ann Aggus; throughout married life, she identified as "Mary Ann Pickingill" and appeared as "Sarah Ann Pittengale" in her burial record.

On 22 June 1858 the couple's daughter, Martha Ann, was born in Hawkwell, Essex.  By 1861 they had moved to Eastwood, Essex, where they were recorded in that year's census. Here, Pickingill described himself as an agricultural labourer. That same year, their son Charles Frederick was born. The following year, Pickingill's wife was caught stealing two pecks of potatoes, and subsequently fined ten shillings. In 1863, a second daughter, named Mary Ann, was born to the couple.

At some point in the coming four years, the Pickingill family moved to Canewdon, where another son, George, was born in 1876. The couple and their four children were then recorded in the 1871 census, where Pickingill was again listed as working as an agricultural labourer. In the 1881 census, the couple were recorded as living with two of their children, Mary Ann and George, and Pickingill was again identifying as a labourer. On 17 August 1887, a homeless man named James Taylor stole a jacket and pair of leather gloves from Pickingill. Taylor was arrested and brought to trial in Rochford on 24 August; in October, he pleaded guilty to the theft of the jacket, although not to those of the other items. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour.

On 13 September 1887 Pickingill's wife died at the age of 63 in Canewdon; her death was attributed to a disease of the liver by the certifying doctor. She was buried at Canewdon's St. Nicholas Church on 17 September. According to the 1891 census, Pickingill was still employed as an agricultural labourer, and was living in Canewdon with his married daughter Marry Ann and his granddaughter, Emily Wood. Records show that he was living in a rented cottage with an adjacent garden, and that in July 1899 the owner sold the property at auction. By 1901 he was listed as living on parish relief, with his two sons back living with him.

By this time, Pickingill was increasingly inflating his age, eventually claiming that he was 105 years old. This attracted attention from other areas, including London, and in September 1908 a journalist visited Canewdon; he arrived by automobile, the first that Pickingill had ever seen, and allowed the old man to ride in it. The journalist subsequently wrote an article about the alleged centegenerian, in which he claimed that his name was "Frederick Pickingale"; it is possible that Pickingill gave the false name so that no one would be able to look up the parish records and discover his real age.
Maple described Pickingill as "a tall, unkempt man, solitary and uncommunicative. He had very long finger-nails, and kept his money in a purse of sacking". He also noted that he had worked as a farm labourer and that he was a widower with two sons.

Magical activities

The first printed account of Pickingill that described him as a cunning man appeared fifty years after his death. This was provided by the folkorist Eric Maple, who was making a systematic study of nineteenth-century traditions regarding witchcraft and magic in south-eastern Essex, and who examined the case of Canewdon in the winter of 1959–60. He had begun his enquiries by meeting with a number of elderly local residents at the home of the schoolmistress, from whom he gained a variety of tales pertaining to magical practices in the village. His initial findings were published in 1960 in the scholarly journal Folklore, produced by The Folklore Society. Maple followed this article with a shorter piece written for 'Essex Countryside Magazine' (Vol.18 No.58 - November 1961). He subsequently produced a sensationalist popular history of witchcraft, The Dark World of Witches (1962), in which he repeated many of the claims regarding Pickingill. In this work, he erroneously described south-eastern Essex as the last bastion of English witchcraft beliefs, and ignored scholarly conventions in relating his information, resulting in a critical reception from folklorists; the book nevertheless was popular and sold well.

Maple noted that, unusually—given his role as a cunning man—Pickingill did not charge for his services, but did receive some money from visitors, and that his recorded roles included restoring lost property and curing minor ailments, both of which were common practices amongst British cunning folk. According to one account, he cured a woman of rheumatism by transferring the ailment to her father. Maple wrote that Pickingill was known to use cursing and malevolent magic on occasion, something that the folklorist contrasted with the activities of other contemporary cunning folk that he had studied, such as James Murrell. At harvest time, Maple recorded, Pickingill was known to wander around the field threatening to bewitch farm machinery, with many farmers thus offering him beer so that he would leave them alone. He was also recorded as coercing local people to obtain water for him from the village pump by threatening to set upon them white mice, a rodent which in local folklore was associated with misfortune. Another tale that Maple recorded also associated Pickingill with white mice; according to this, a visitor travelled to the cunning man's cottage only to find him lying in bed, with the mice suckling from his nipples.

Pickingill was also known for his purported ability to control animals, namely horses, and it was believed that when he struck a hedgerow with his stick, game animals would run out that could then be caught, killed and eaten. It was also rumoured that he could do things faster than ordinary human beings, and that he could do an hour's job in only a few minutes, with some believing that he got his imps—his familiar spirits—to do the job for him. Maple also noted that people who visited his cottage reported seeing ornaments and furniture dancing around the room of their own accord; the folklorist believed that this story had originated in a Dutch folkloric tradition that may have been imported to Essex when many Dutch migrants settled there in the seventeenth century.

According to Maple, Pickingill was sufficiently well known in Essex as an accomplished cunning man that people came to visit him from outside Canewdon in search of magical aid, sometimes "from great distances", including men from the Essex village of Dengie, who sought his advice in a wage dispute. Meanwhile, as Maple noted, Canewdon had developed a reputation associating it with witchcraft and magic by the end of the nineteenth century, when it was often thought of as "The Witch Country" and avoided by many wagoners who feared having their vehicles bewitched. This was possibly due to its relative isolation from neighbouring settlements, as it was surrounded by marshland, and the insular nature of its community. Maple recorded that in this period there was a rumour that there were either six or nine elderly women living in Canewdon who were malevolent witches and used their magic to harm others. It was believed that whilst they were not known to one another, they all owed their allegiance to a singular wizard or master of witches, and there was a rumour in the local community that Pickingill himself was this figure. It was claimed that as "Master of Witches", Pickingill simply had to whistle in order for these nine witches to stand by their front doors and reveal their identities, or that alternately he could "will them" to dance for him in the local churchyard.

Subsequent researchers also travelled to Canewdon to meet with Maple's informants and confirm his account for themselves. In April 1967 Ronald Hutton visited the village where he met with elderly resident Lillian Garner, who had been one of Maple's informants. He also found an informant that Maple had not encountered, an old man named Jack Taylor, then living in a retirement home. Taylor claimed that as a young man he knew Pickingill, and that the latter had the power of horse-whispering—the magical ability to command horses to do his bidding. On the whole, Hutton found that the account of Pickingill among the local people to whom he spoke was entirely consistent with that provided by Maple. In 1977 Hutton was followed by the Gardnerian Wiccan initiate Michael Howard, who met with Garner, then eighty-seven years old. On this occasion, she recalled Pickingill being photographed with the first car to arrive in the village, and also gave Howard the original copy of a photograph of him that was in her possession. She then added the information—which she had not given to Maple or Hutton—that her own mother had talked of Pickingill leading a local coven, and that he received "many visitors" from "a long way away" who sought his magical knowledge.

A different account was provided by Charles Lefebvre, an American author of the sensationalist Witness to Witchcraft (1970). Here, his use of sources was unclear, although he asserted that Pickingill had had an ageless body, was a relative of Roma people, was the last survivor of an old witch family, held Black Masses and orgies in the church yard, and was visited by "black magicians" from across Europe. According to Lefebvre, Pickingill was finally killed when confronted by the sign of the cross. Hutton later described these as "fantasies" which served to support Lefebvre's view that witchcraft should be criminalised.

However, claims have since been made that Pickingill was not a cunning man or involved in folk magic at all. Local Canewdon historian Sylvia Webster expressed her view to Howard that tales regarding Pickingill's magical practices had been invented by the locals of Canewdon to impress Maple. Supporting this position, she highlighted that there was no evidence to suggest that Pickingill was a cunning man prior to Maple's publications. Similarly, Richard Ward argued that the contemporary obituaries and interviews conducted with Pickingill had shown no evidence of any magical activities, when such might have been expected. Ward suggested that many of the stories regarding Pickingill's magical activities were adapted from those of a genuine Essex cunning man, James Murrell. Hutton responded critically to Ward's claims, highlighting his own investigations into the local folklore and his interview with Taylor to express the view that there "seems little doubt" that Pickingill was a cunning man, although "there are still questions over what sort of one he was". At the same time, Hutton also accepted the possibility that some of the legends associated with Murrell had come to be associated with Pickingill, although stated that this seemed to be "incapable of solid proof". In his counter-response to Hutton, Ward accepting that Pickingill could have been associated with "some apparent supernatural control or knowledge of horses" as Taylor had claimed, but that this did not automatically make him a cunning man, for which there remained no contemporary historical evidence.

Death

According to Maple's account, in the last few weeks of Pickingill's life, when he had become very ill, the local people moved him to the infirmary against his will, where he declared that at his funeral there would be one more demonstration of his magical powers. Many locals interpreted this as coming true when as the hearse carrying his coffin drew up to the churchyard, the horses stepped out of their harness shafts. His body was subsequently buried in the church's graveyard, whilst his abandoned house gradually became dilapidated before falling down.

According to his death certificate, "George Pettingale" died on 10 April 1909 at the age of 103, and his cause of death was "senile decay" and "cardiac failure". He was buried at Canewdon's St Nicholas Church on 14 April; although his stated age of 103 was recorded, the vicar added a note asserting that this was erroneous, for in reality Pickingill was "born at Hockley 1816 [and] was only in his 93rd year".

Pickingill's death attracted national press attention. It was claimed in both the Essex Newsman and The Times that he was "believed to be the oldest man in England"; these publications recorded his age as 106. The story was also picked up by New Zealand newspaper The Star, in which he was described as "the oldest man in England".

According to Maple, Pickingill left "a legacy of myth which is curiously alien to the general run of witch traditions. In all the stories told of Pickingill there is a subtle undercurrent of horror which one finds hard to pinpoint. Possibly it arises from the fact that many of those who recount the tales actually knew the man and experienced just such a quiet terror when he passed them in the village street."

Bill Liddell's claims
In 1974, a writer began sending articles to Pagan newsletter The Wiccan, then edited by the Gardnerian Wiccan John Score, articulating an alternative account of Pickingill's life and relation to the British occult movement. First identifying himself only as "a well wisher", he later began using the pseudonym Lugh, named for the Irish mythological figure. In 1977, Lugh ceased sending the articles to The Wiccan and instead began publishing them in a rival British magazine, The Cauldron, edited by Michael Howard; he claimed to have switched outlets because The Wiccan had been too dominated by Gardnerian perspectives. Lugh later revealed his name to be E.W. "Bill" Liddell, describing himself as an Englishman born in Essex. He added that circa 1960 he had moved to Auckland, New Zealand, before later relocating to Australia, from where he wrote his articles. In a 1984 letter he  noted that he was not born with the surname of Liddell but had instead adopted it later in life. Claiming that Pickingill had been the first-cousin of his paternal great-great-grandfather, Liddell asserted that he had been initiated into his family's hereditary form of witchcraft in 1950, and that he had subsequently been initiated into both the Gardnerian and Alexandrian traditions of Wicca. His partner, Sylvia Tatham, had been heavily involved in the development of the Alexandrian tradition in the early 1960s, having been one of those present when its founder, Alex Sanders, was initiated into the Gardnerian tradition. In 1982, Wiccan Publications collected together and published these articles as two pamphlets: Old George Pickingill and the Roots of Modern Witchcraft and Medieval Witchcraft and the Freemasons. The articles were republished in one single volume in 1994 as The Pickingill Papers, edited by Liddell and Howard.

Liddell's claims regarding Pickingill are self-contradictory. Liddell explained this by stating that the information contained in his articles had been passed on to him by three separate sources, all of which had decided to use him as a mouthpiece for their own claims. The first were the members of a hereditary tradition of Pagan witchcraft, while the second were the practitioners of a similar yet separate tradition of Pagan witchcraft which, Liddell alleged, had been greatly influenced by Pickingill in the nineteenth century. The third source cited by Liddell was his own experiences gained from being born into a witchcraft family and subsequently being initiated into both of the aforementioned traditions and a separate "cunning lodge". He claimed that most of the information that he was publishing came from "Elders", or older members, involved in the first two of these traditions, and that as such he could not vouch for its accuracy, going so far as to state that he doubted the veracity of much of it.

Noting that these Elders themselves had very different opinions on Gardnerian Wicca, he also stated that the Elders ceased providing him with new information in the early 1980s. He stated that these various Elders had chosen him to disseminate the information because he had been involved in both hereditary witchcraft and Gardnerian Wicca and because he was based in New Zealand, thereby making it hard for anyone to trace their identities. Despite Liddell claiming that the material he was putting forward came from various sources, the historian Ronald Hutton noted that it was all presented in a "single, dogmatic, authorial voice", with no indication of where the different pieces of information came from. Hutton also asserted that Liddell's changing claims would be entirely consistent with a single individual making up stories and changing them as they went along.

Liddell's account
According to Liddell's initial 1974 claims, since the eleventh century the Pickingill family had been priests of a pre-Christian, pagan religion devoted to the worship of the Horned God. In this, his claims fitted within the historical framework of the discredited witch-cult hypothesis as propagated in the works of Margaret Murray. Later he added that the "medieval witch cult" was influenced by the "tenets" of the Iron Age druids, in particular their knowledge of ley lines which were marked out by the stone circles erected in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Conflicting with these ideas, in 1998 Liddell personally informed Hutton that the witch-cult did not derive from ancient pre-Christian religion but that it instead had been founded in fifteenth-century France, emerging from a union between Christian heretics, cunning lodges, and a cult of Lucifer founded by Islamic Moors with the intent of undermining Christianity.

Liddell claimed that the Pickingill family had many links to the travelling Romani population, and that Pickingill spent many of his early years in a Romani caravan. Liddell claimed that Pickingill faced persecution as a result, and that he "set out to terrify" the locals of Canewdon in retaliation. According to Liddell, Pickingill was trained in Romani magic, and thus in later life became "the most famous gypsy kako in England". Liddell also claimed that Pickingill despised Christianity and wanted to see it overthrown; to this end he collaborated with Satanists and included Satanic elements within his ritual practices, something which horrified other members of the East Anglian witch-cult. Thus, according to Liddell, Pickingill was "England's most feared and vilified 'Satanist'". Elsewhere, he stressed that Pickingill was not a Satanist, but rather that he had been considered such by other witches because he practised sex magic.

Liddell asserted that Pickingill spent time in France, where he was initiated into a local form of the witch-cult. According to this account, upon his return to Canewdon, Pickingill was invited to lead a local coven which had been operating since the mid-fifteenth century—the "Seven Witches of Canewdon"—and that he continued to lead the group until disbanding it several years prior to his death. Liddell added that Pickingill proceeded to introduce many new innovations into the English witch-cult by applying concepts borrowed from the Danish and French witch-cults, namely the idea that the coven should be led by a woman. Liddell asserted that Pickingill then established nine covens in England, spread out in Essex, Norfolk, Hertfordshire, Sussex, and Hampshire; he further added that two of those covens, based in Hertfordshire and Norfolk, survived into at least the 1970s. According to Liddell, Pickingill was propagating witchcraft in a reformed, female-oriented form because the oncoming Age of Aquarius would be more receptive to this form of spirituality.

In Liddell's account, Pickingill travelled widely and joined a variety of cunning lodges, gaining access to their grimoires and libraries. According to Liddell, from the 1850s onward Pickingill began co-operating with a group of Freemasons who considered themselves to be Rosicrucians and who wanted to prove that Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism were "siblings" of the witch-cult. Two of these Freemasons, Hargrave Jennings and W.J. Hughan, became pupils of Pickingill, who aided them in producing a Rosicrucian Manifesto that was used in the formation of the Societas Rosicruciana in 1865. According to Liddell, Pickingill's involvement with Freemasons also led to the foundation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1888. Liddell also asserted that Pickingill was influenced by a coven that had been founded in the early nineteenth century by a group of Cambridge University academics led by Francis Barrett and whose rituals were based largely on Classical sources.

Liddell also claimed that the prominent occultist Aleister Crowley had been initiated into one of these nine covens as a young man. According to this account, Crowley had been introduced to the coven in 1899 or 1900 by his magical mentor, Allan Bennett. Liddell asserted that Crowley was subsequently ejected from the coven for his misbehaviour. As evidence for these claims, he stated that his own grandfather had been present on three occasions at which Bennett and Crowley met with Pickingill, and that he had seen a photograph in which the three figures are together. When asked to present this photograph for public scrutiny in 1977, Liddell claimed that it was "not available"; when independently asked again in 1983, he asserted that it had been stolen by "interested parties".

Further, Liddell stated that one of Pickingill's covens was the New Forest coven, a Wiccan group which Gerald Gardner—the founder of Gardnerian Wicca—claimed had initiated him in 1939. However, Liddell did later state that he was not certain whether this was true. He also asserted that Gardner later joined another of the Pickingill covens, based in Hertfordshire, through which he received "the Second Rite of the Hereditary Craft". Liddell stressed that this group was separate from Gardner's own Bricket Wood coven. He furthermore claimed that Gardner received the "Third Rite" from an East Anglian coven, with this three-degree system of initiation influencing that in Gardnerian Wicca. As a result, he stated that the structure and rituals of Gardnerian Wicca were based on those devised by Pickingill, and that "no impartial observer could fail to see that they formed the nucleus of the rites of Wicca." Liddell believed that while many hereditary witches despised him, Gardner represented "the spiritual heir of Pickingill", because he had similarly reformed and propagated witchcraft for contemporary purposes.

Pagan response

Liddell's claims have received a mixed response from the British Wiccan community. Score championed them in private letters to his correspondents, declaring that they proved that the Gardnerian tradition had historical origins predating Gardner. His successor as editor of The Wiccan, Leonora James, was intrigued by Liddell's claims and investigated the original records pertaining to Pickingill's life; however, by the 1980s she had concluded that Liddell's claims were spurious. In her 1978 book Witchcraft for Tomorrow, the Wiccan Doreen Valiente – who had been Gardner's High Priestess in the Bricket Wood coven during the 1950s—stated that she had an "East Anglian source" from Essex who claimed that many of Liddell's assertions were correct. In particular, the informant championed Liddell's claims that Crowley had been an initiate of one of Pickingill's covens. By the time of her 1989 book The Rebirth of Witchcraft, Valiente was more sceptical of Liddell's claims, noting that any supporting evidence was "still sadly lacking".

Another of Gardner's High Priestesses, Lois Bourne, asserted that she was "as sure as I can be" that Gardner had nothing to do with any witches from Canewdon and that if they existed in the first place, then they must have belonged to a tradition distinct from Gardnerian Wicca. Privately, the Gardnerian initiate and founder of Alexandrian Wicca, Alex Sanders, rejected the claims that Liddell made. In his 2013 biography of Valiente, Jonathan Tapsell stated that the Liddell material was "generally regarded as a hoax", being "a spurious history at best, or a malicious prank at worst." Hutton asserted that the only "sustained champion" of Liddell's claims has been Michael Howard, noting that he had defended such ideas in a "limited and measured" manner. Pagan studies scholar Ethan Doyle White noted that in his history of the Traditional Witchcraft movement, Children of Cain, Howard "remains cautious and refrains from accepting [Liddell's claims] outright". Howard has maintained that he keeps an "open mind" about Liddell's claims, noting that while no evidence has been brought forward to substantiate them, similarly he does not believe that "any real evidence" has been brought forth to disprove them.

Support for Liddell's story came from Cecil Williamson, founder of the Museum of Witchcraft, who claimed to have known about Pickingill through his acquaintances with both Crowley and Gardner. However, Williamson was an unreliable source, and was known to repeatedly fabricate claims regarding past events. Another figure, known only as Colonel Lawrence, also supported Liddell's story, asserting that his own great-grandmother had studied under Pickingill and thus had been introduced to Crowley; as with Williamson's, however, Lawrence's claims are unreliable, particularly as he has made the unsupported claim that his great-grandmother studied witchcraft under the American folklorist Charles Leland. Also supporting Liddell's claims was the Wiccan Ralph Harvey, who, following the publication of Liddell's material, publicly declared that in the 1950s or 1960s he had been initiated into one of Pickingill's Nine Covens, located in Storrington, Sussex. Following the publication of Liddell's claims, a number of covens appeared in both the United States and Australia claiming to be practitioners of a tradition originating with Pickingill. Liddell himself has been critical of such groups, expressing his regret that the material he published led to their formation.

Academic response

Liddell's claims have had a far more critical reception from scholars specialising in magic and witchcraft in British history. In 1975, Eric Maple dismissed Lugh's claims as preposterous. He believed that such tales had been fabricated by someone who had used his own book, The Dark World of Witches, as a basis. Maple informed the historian James W. Baker that he believed people connected to Valiente were behind the Lugh claims, although Baker disagreed, commenting that Valiente was "one of the most honest of commentators on the subject" of contemporary witchcraft, and that as a result was unlikely to be involved in such duplicity. Baker described Liddell's account as "an extravagant hoax", with its claims constituting "a preposterous ahistorical muddle".

Historian Ronald Hutton also scrutinised Liddell's claims, although added that he had corresponded with Liddell "at length and in detail", over the course of which he had come to like him, noting that "he has responded to often forceful criticisms with patience, modesty, and good humour". However, Hutton highlighted that no independent witnesses have emerged to support the existence of Liddell's alleged informants, while no supporting documentation has appeared to back any of his many claims. Hutton deemed this particularly unusual, because were Liddell's claims to have been accurate, much documentary evidence could be expected to exist. Focusing on Liddell's claim that Crowley had been initiated into one of Pickingill's covens during the 1890s, Hutton noted that there is no mention of Pickingill or a witches' coven in either Crowley's published work or personal diaries, and that similarly there was no mention of either in the diaries of Bennett, who was Crowley's magical tutor during the 1890s.

Hutton's assessment was shared by historian Owen Davies; in his study of English cunning-folk, he described Liddell's stories as "seductive but entirely unsubstantiated". Instead, he maintained that Pickingill was "a simple rural cunning-man whose small world of village affairs never crossed with that of middle-class occultists. He received a Christian burial and the idea that he was a pagan priest would probably make him turn in his grave." While agreeing with Maple's assessment that Pickingill was "one of the last practising cunning-folk in the country", Maple noted that—unlike Murrell, James Tuckett, John Wrightson, and William Brewer—Pickingill was not a "major regional figure" in the profession.

American Pagan studies scholar Aidan A. Kelly similarly rejected Liddell's claims. Kelly highlighted that whereas Liddell had claimed that Gardnerian Wicca had adopted the concept of a female coven leader from French and Scandinavian witch covens, the historical evidence clearly showed that Gardner developed the concept of a coven being led by a high priestess during the late 1950s, thus disproving Liddell's assertions. He noted that Liddell's claim that Crowley wrote Gardner's Book of Shadows "cannot possibly be true" because Crowley died before the Book was written. Kelly believed that either Liddell or his Elders had purposely created a "phony history" in order to hide the fact that Gardner had invented Wicca in its entirety in the early 1950s. Similarly, in a 2014 article about Pickingill in The Cauldron, Richard Ward argued that Liddell's claims did not stand up under scrutiny, and that they had simply been made in an attempt to promote claims regarding the existence of a "pre-Gardnerian tradition" of witchcraft. Liddell has specifically denied any charges that he was deliberately falsifying claims to make Gardnerian Wicca appear to have an older pedigree than it really has.

References

Notes

Footnotes

Bibliography

1816 births
1909 deaths
Burials in Essex
Aleister Crowley
Cunning folk
Esotericists
English folklore
English magicians
English occultists
People from Rochford District
Witchcraft in England
Witchcraft in folklore and mythology


Michael Edwards (born September 16, 1944) is an American actor and model.

Early life
Edwards is the son of John Chalmers Edwards Sr. and Charlotte Caroline Anderson, a high school teacher. He has an older sister named Jeannie. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Pensacola, Florida. When he was six months old, his father left the family for a "buxom blond Texas heiress."

Career
In 1962, Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and received his training at Parris Island. After his discharge from the service, he began his career as a model, appearing in TV commercials and magazine layouts. While modeling, he had a dialogue-free cameo in Play It as It Lays (1972) opposite Tuesday Weld. Edwards is pictured and interviewed in the book Male Model: The World Behind the Camera, published in 1979.

Edwards' most prominent acting role to date has been as Joan Crawford's lover Ted Gelber in the 1981 film Mommie Dearest with Faye Dunaway and Mara Hobel. He appeared briefly as "General John Connor" in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).

Personal life
On June 4, 1966, Edwards married stewardess Grace Ward, of Boston. They had a daughter, Caroline (born January 6, 1967). Edwards and Ward divorced in October 1968.

Edwards dated Priscilla Presley on and off between 1978 and 1984. After they broke up, he wrote a book titled Priscilla, Elvis and Me (1988), in which he admitted being attracted to Presley's teenage daughter Lisa Marie. Lisa Marie reported in a 2003 interview with Playboy that Edwards would make drunken attempts to enter her room and be "inappropriate" with her.

Filmography

References

External links

American male film actors
American male models
Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
1944 births
Male actors from Florida
People from Pensacola, Florida


George Friel (15 July 1910 – 1975) was a Scottish writer.  He was born in Glasgow as the fourth of seven children, and was educated at St. Mungo's Academy and the University of Glasgow. After a period of service in the army, he returned to the family home in Bishopbriggs and worked as a teacher until his death from cancer in 1975.

The Boy Who Wanted Peace, Mr Alfred M.A. and Grace and Miss Partridge were published in 1999 as The Glasgow Trilogy by Canongate Books. A collection of short stories was published in 1992 by Polygon under the title A friend of humanity and other stories.

Friel's fourth novel, Mr Alfred M.A., made it to the "100 Best Scottish Books of all Time" list.

Books
 The Bank of Time (London: New Authors, 1959)
 The Boy Who Wanted Peace (London: John Calder, 1964)
 Grace and Miss Partridge (London: Calder and Boyars, 1969)
 Mr Alfred M.A. (London: Calder and Boyars, 1972)
 An Empty House (London: Calder and Boyars, 1974)

References

External links
 www.nls.uk

1910 births
1975 deaths
Scottish novelists
Writers from Glasgow
Date of death missing
People educated at St Mungo's Academy
20th-century British novelists
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Deaths from cancer in Scotland


It's Not Killing Me is the debut solo album by American blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield. It was released in 1969 through Columbia Records. Following his success with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Electric Flag, and in the Super Session recordings with Al Kooper, Bloomfield teamed up with former colleagues to record this largely self-written album.

The album peaked at No. 127 on the Billboard 200.

Reception

AllMusic criticized its "lack of a powerful vocalist" and the under-use of Bloomfield's guitar, going so far as to say "it makes about as much sense as Led Zeppelin having Jimmy Page sing lead while Robert Plant played tambourine!"

Track listing
All tracks have words and music credited to Mike Bloomfield, except as indicated.

Side one
"If You See My Baby" – 3:07
"For Anyone You Meet" – 4:07
"Good Old Guy" – 3:21
"Far Too Many Nights" – 5:07
"It's Not Killing Me" – 3:14

Side two
"Next Time You See Me" (Ben Tucker) – 2:57
"Michael's Lament" – 4:22
"Why Must My Baby" – 2:38
"The Ones I Loved Are Gone" – 3:07
"Don't Think About It Baby" – 3:33
"Goofers" – 1:50

Personnel
 Michael Bloomfield – lead guitar, vocals, piano, acoustic guitar
Bob Jones – drums, vocals
Ronny Schreff – drums, mallets, percussion
John Kahn – bass
Fred Olson – rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar
Ira Kamin – organ, piano, banjo
Mark Naftalin – organ, piano
Roy Ruby – organ
Michael Melford – guitar, mandolin, vocals
Nick Gravenites – vocals
Orville "Red" Rhodes – steel guitar
Ron Stallings – tenor saxophone
Mark Teel – baritone saxophone
Gerald Oshita – baritone and tenor saxophone
Noel Jewkes – soprano and tenor saxophone
John Wilmeth – trumpet
Marcus Doubleday – trumpet
Richard Santi – accordion
The Ace of Cups – vocals
Diane Tribuno – vocals
Technical
Daily Planet – cover design
Don Wilson – cover illustration
Peter Amft (son of Robert Amft) – cover photograph
Jim Marshall – rear cover photograph

References

1969 albums
Mike Bloomfield albums
Columbia Records albums
Albums produced by Nick Gravenites


The Mujahideen in Chechnya (, Muzhakhady v Chechnye) () were foreign Islamist Mujahideen volunteers that fought in Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus.

It was created by Fathi al-Urduni in 1995 during the First Chechen War, where it fought against the Russian Federation in favor of Chechnya's independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. During the Second Chechen War it played an important part in further fighting.

Name
The unit has been known by several names throughout its existence. Examples include the Chechen Mujahideen, the Islamic Regiment, the Islamic Battalion, the Arabs in Chechnya and the Ansaar in Chechnya.

Although the overwhelming majority of the unit has always consisted of Arab volunteers, there were also members of non-Arab, usually Kurds, Turks and other North Cauсasians. It is not to be confused with the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR), al-Qaeda’s 055 Brigade or the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade (IIPB).

History
Foreign Mujahideen have played an important part in both First and Second Chechen Wars. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent Chechen declaration of independence, foreign fighters started entering the region and associated themselves with Chechen rebels, most notably Shamil Basayev with whom Ibn al-Khattab build up a friendship. Many of them were veterans of the Soviet–Afghan War and prior to the Russian invasion, they used their expertise to train Chechen fighters.

First Chechen War and Interwar period

During the First Chechen War they were notorious and feared for their guerilla tactics, inflicting severe casualties on Russian forces. The mujahideen also made a significant financial contribution to the Chechen cause; with their access to the immense wealth of Salafist charities like al-Haramein, they soon became an invaluable source of funds for the Chechen resistance, which had little to none resources of its own.

After the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya most of the mujahideen decided to remain in the country, including Khattab who married a woman from Dagestan. In 1999, foreign fighters played an important role in the War of Dagestan. Shamil Basayev and Khattab had created the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade which was composed of Chechen fighters. The invasion was started in support of the Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan separatist rebels. After the battle, they retreated back into Chechnya. The incursion provided the new Russian government with a pretext for intervention and in December 1999 Russian ground forces invaded Chechnya again.

Second Chechen War
During the ensuing Second Chechen War, the Arab Mujahideen played another important part, both for delivering fighters and their financial contributions. It was during this time that the Russians succeeded in eliminating the most prominent mujahideen commanders Ibn al-Khattab and Abu al-Walid.

Commanders

As Mujahideen in Chechnya
 Ibn al-Khattab (1999–2002)
 Abu al-Walid (2002–2004)
 Abu Hafs al-Urduni (2004–2006)
 Muhannad (2006–2011)
 Abdulla Kurd (2011)

Structure
The battalion was mostly composed of Arabs, however, there were also Caucasian and Kurdish fighters in relatively small numbers. All known Emirs (leaders) are deceased. Its first Emir was Ibn Al-Khattab (Saudi) who was killed in March 2002 and succeeded by Abu al-Walid (Saudi), who was killed in April 2004. His successor became Abu Hafs al-Urduni (Jordanian) who was killed in November 2006. He was succeeded by Muhannad (Saudi), who was killed in a clash with security forces in the Chechen village of Serzhen-Yurt on 21 April 2011. Several weeks later, his successor Abdulla Kurd (Kurdish) was also killed. The battalion was split into multiple units of Mujahideen commanded by their respective Emirs which disbanded by 2012.

See also
 Pan-Islamism
 White Tights (Alleged female Baltic snipers in the Chechen Wars)

Afghanistan
 Afghan mujahideen
 Afghan Arabs
Yugoslav wars
 Bosnian mujahideen
Iraqi conflict
 Kurdish Mujahideen

References

Caucasus Emirate
Jihadist groups
Second Chechen War
Pan-Islamism
Mujahideen