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BIG BEN
Big Ben is the nickname of the Great Bell in the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster. The tower—originally named St. Stephen’s, then just “the Clock Tower”—was completed in 1858. The bell is the second to be cast, the first having cracked beyond repair. The replacement was made at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It first chimed in July 1859 but cracked in September and was out of commission for three years.
HENRY BERESFORD, 3RD MARQUESS OF WATERFORD (1811—1859)
Nicknamed “the Mad Marquess,” Beresford’s drunken pranks made him the prime suspect during the Spring Heeled Jack phenomenon of the Victorian Age. He was killed in a horse-riding accident in 1859.
JAMES BRUCE, 8TH EARL OF ELGIN (1811—1863)
From 1857 to 1861, Lord Elgin was High Commissioner to China, during which time he organised the bombing of Canton, oversaw the end of the Second Opium War, and ordered the looting and burning of the Yuan Ming Yuan (Old Summer Palace). In 1860, he put his signature to the Convention of Beijing, which stipulated that Hong Kong would become a part of the British Empire.
In 1859, Lord Elgin and his secretary, Laurence Oliphant, were in Aden, en route to London, when Burton and Speke arrived at Zanzibar, having completed their expedition to Africa’s Central Lakes. Elgin offered to convey them home aboard his ship, HMS Furious. In the event, with Burton being too sick to travel, it was only Speke who accepted the offer.
ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL (1806—1859)
Brunel was, by 1859, the British Empire’s most celebrated civil engineer, responsible for building the bridges, tu
EDWARD JOSEPH BURTON (1824—1895)
Richard Francis Burton’s younger brother shared his wild youth but later settled into Army life. Extremely handsome and a talented violinist, he became an enthusiastic hunter, which proved his undoing—in 1856, his killing of elephants so enraged Singhalese villagers that they beat him senseless. The following year, still not properly recovered, he fought valiantly during the Indian Mutiny but was so severely affected by sunstroke that he suffered a psychotic reaction. He never spoke again. For much of the remaining 37 years of his life, he was a patient in the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum.
CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON (1821—1890)
On 4th March 1859, Captain Richard Francis Burton and Lieutenant John Ha
THE CANNIBAL CLUB
In 1863, Burton and Doctor James Hunt established The Anthropological Society, through which to publish books concerning ethnological and anthropological matters. As an offshoot of the society, the Ca
ALEISTER CROWLEY (1875—1947)
Aleister Crowley, called by the press of his time “the wickedest man in the world,” was an influential occultist, author, poet, and mountaineer. He was a great admirer of Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Swinburne.
CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN (1809—1882)
After decades of work researching and developing his theory of natural selection, Darwin had only partially written up his thesis when, in June 1858, he received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that outlined the same hypothesis. For the next year, Darwin, suffering from ill-health, rushed to produce an “abstract” of his work, so that he, rather than Wallace, might claim to be the theory’s architect. On the Origin of Species was finally published on 22nd November 1859. It was an instant best-seller and has become one of the most influential books in history.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI, 1ST EARL OF BEACONSFIELD (1804—1881)
Having already succeeded as a novelist, Disraeli entered politics in the 1830s. In 1835, he outlined the principles for the Young England political group, which sought to advance an idealised version of feudalism, supported the idea of an absolute monarch, and promoted the raising of the lower classes. The group lasted until 1847. Disraeli achieved greater prominence in the mid 1840s, when, in light of the Great Irish Famine, he led opposition to the repeal of the Corn Laws. In 1852, Lord Derby appointed him chancellor of the Exchequer. His subsequent budget led to the fall of the government. Nonetheless, Disraeli occupied the post again from 1858 to the middle of 1859, before eventually becoming prime minister throughout 1868, and again from 1874 to 1880.
CHARLES DODGSON (1832—1898)
Better known as Lewis Carroll, by 1859 Dodgson was contributing stories and poetry to various magazines and had become friendly with the Pre-Raphaelite artists, including Gabriel Dante Rossetti. He’d also become acquainted with the Liddell family, whose daughter, Alice, would inspire his greatest work, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
SIR FRANCIS GALTON (1822—1911)
The half-cousin of Charles Darwin, Francis Galton was an anthropologist, eugenicist, explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, and statistician. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species inspired him, in 1859, to dedicate the rest of his life to the research of heredity in human beings.
Fifteen years earlier, in February 1844, 22-year-old Galton had joined the Freemasons. He rose through the Masonic degrees from Apprentice, to Fellow Craft, then to Master Mason, over the course of just four months. The records of the Grand Lodge state that: “Francis Galton, Trinity College student, gained his certificate 13th March 1845.”
Also in 1845, he suffered a severe nervous breakdown.
SIR DANIEL GOOCH (1816—1889)
After training with a number of companies, including the one run by Robert Stephenson, Daniel Gooch was recruited in 1837 by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Railway. He became one of Britain’s most eminent railway engineers, and later played a major role in laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable.
THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE
Potato blight struck Ireland in February of 1845. It caused mass starvation and disease, leading to an exodus between 1845 and 1852, when thousands of Irish citizens emigrated.
THOMAS LAKE HARRIS (1823—1906)
An American mystic and self-styled prophet, Lake preached in London in 1859, claiming his inspirations were received from an angel named the Lily Queen, to whom he was married. He dedicated one of his books, Lyra Triumphalis, to Algernon Swinburne. In the late 1860s, Harris created the Fountain Grove community in California—essentially a cult—which Laurence Oliphant joined. Oliphant gave all his money to the community and worked as a farm labourer, not properly splitting from the group until 1881.