John Woodcock Graves
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Woodcock Graves (9 February 1795 – 17 August 1886) was a composer and author of "D'ye ken John Peel".
Graves was born in Wigton, Cumberland, England, the son of Joseph Graves, a plumber, glazier and ironmonger and his wife Ann, née Matthews.
His father died when he was nine years old and he had comparatively little education.
At 14 he began to work for an uncle in Cockermouth who was a house, sign, and coach painter, but he learnt little from him. He owed more to an old bachelor, Joseph Falder, a friend of John Dalton the scientist. Graves afterwards said of Falder "he fixed in me a love of truth, and bent my purpose to pursue it". Graves did some drawing, and at one time wished to study art, but his circumstances did not allow of this, and he became a woollen miller at Caldbeck. There he was friendly with John Peel (1776-1854), with whom he hunted. He was sitting in his parlour one evening with Peel when Graves's little daughter came in and said, "Father what do they say to what granny sings?" "Granny was singing to sleep my eldest son with a very old rant called 'Bonnie (or Cannie) Annie'. The pen and ink being on the table, the idea of writing a song to this old air forced itself upon me, and thus was produced, impromptu, 'D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so grey'. . . . I well remember saying in a joking style, 'By jove, Peel you'll be sung when we're both run to earth'."[1][2]
Graves neglected his woollen mills and lost a court case concerning it. Graves left for Tasmania, and arrived at Hobart in 1833 with his wife and four children, and about £10 in his pocket. Except for a short period at Sydney he remained in Tasmania for the rest of his life. Graves was inventive and "brought to considerable perfection several machines--especially one for preparing the New Zealand flax". His fortunes varied but he was able to give his children a good education. His eldest son, his namesake, became a well-known Hobart barrister but died before his father, and another son in business in Hobart looked after him in his last days. Graves died at Hobart. He was married twice: firstly to Jane Atkinson and secondly to Abigail Porthouse. There were eight children of the second marriage, of whom at least one son and a daughter survived him. In 1958 a memorial to him was erected in St David's Park. Sidney Gilpin's The Songs and Ballads of Cumberland includes six poems by Graves.[1][2]

Henry Dalzell
8th Earl of Carnwath
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henry Dalzell, 8th Earl of Carnwath was born 12 April 1858 in Baden-Wurttemberg, the only child of Thomas Henry Dalzell, 7th Earl of Carnwath and Isabella Eliza Wilmot. He succeeded to his father's title upon the latter's death in 1867. In January 1873, it was reported that fourteen years of age Carnwath was the youngest Earl in Britain.
He died 13 March 1873 of measles at Harrow where he was a student.
He was succeeded by his father's younger brother Arthur Alexander Dalzell, 9th Earl of Carnwath

Beaumont Hotham,
3rd Baron Hotham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beaumont Hotham, 3rd Baron Hotham (9 August 1794 - 12 December 1870), was a British soldier, peer and long-standing ConservativeMember of Parliament.
Hotham was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Beaumont Hotham and Philadelphia Dyke.
His father died when he was five years old. Hotham fought at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and later achieved the rank of General.
In 1814 he had succeeded his grandfather as third Baron Hotham, but as this was an Irish peerage it did not entitle him to a seat in the House of Lords. He was instead elected to the House of Commons for Leominster in 1820, a seat he held, with a brief exception for a few months in 1831, until 1841, and then represented the East Riding of Yorkshire between 1841 and 1868. By the time he retired from the House of Commons he was one of the longest-serving Members of Parliament.
Lord Hotham died in December 1870, aged 76. He never married and was succeeded in his titles by his nephew Charles.

Rodolphe Wytsman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rodolphe Paul Marie Wytsman (born Dendermonde, March 11, 1860 - died Linkebeek, November 2, 1927) was a BelgianImpressionist painter.[1]
He trained at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, he was one of the founding members of Les XX.


Origin
Rodolphe Wytsman was the son of Klemens Wytsman (Dendermonde, 1825–1870), a man of Austrian origin who was notary and ships in his hometown, and Emma-Maria Cockuyt (Ghent, c. 1838). Wytsman married in 1886 Juliëtte Trullemans (Juliëtte Wytsman) (Brussels, 1866 Elsene, 1925), also painter. They lived successively in the 1922 Education Street (c. 1881), Van Dyck Street, 1914 (1884), Neuchâtelstraat, 1917 (1885), Priëelstraat, 6 (1888) and later in the Keyenveldstraat 26, 1939, in Brussels.
Early life
He grew up in a cultured environment: his father was - apart from the care of his notary - a meritorious numismatist, historian, composer and urbanist. Among his friends were the Flemish composers François Auguste Gevaert, Peter Benoit, but also the French literary figure, Victor Hugo.
Wytsman father died prematurely in 1870, when Rodolphe only 9 to 10 years old.
Wytsman's mother shortly thereafter moved to Dendermonde, Ghent, her hometown. In 1873 Rodolphe Wytsman took courses at the Academy in Ghent from Jean Capeinick (1838–1890), a painter who specialized in still lifes and rich, colorful floral arrangements. Capeinick, a true professional, was the teacher who had accompanied young Theo Van Rysselberghe. Wytsman's studies were interrupted by a lucrative job in a yarn shop. After three years, and against the wishes of his mother, he stopped with his eyes deadening and oppressive occupation, and resumed his studies at the Academy. His teachers were then Théodore-Joseph Canneel and Julius De Keghel. Wytsman became friends with Theo Van Rysselberghe, Gustave Vanaise and Armand Heins. With the latter he became a friend for life. As a painter Wytsman opted for the landscape. His early works - this time from the Ghent - were realistic. In the following years he developed gradually into a still more conventional pre-impressionist style. But Wytsman already lived in Brussels, where the pulse of modernist painting was the best feeling.
Brussels
Wytsman mother settled with her family in Brussels, where Rodolphe in the same year continued his studies at the Academy. He studied with Jean Portaels, Joseph Stallaert and Joseph Van Severendonck. Among his fellow students included Eugene Broerman in Brussels, Francois Halkett, Frantz Charlet and again Theo Van Rysselberghe. Also James Ensor and Guillaume Van Strydonck studied at that time. At the Brussels Academy, he came into contact with the artists group "L'Essor". "L'Essor" was founded on March 4, 1876 by some students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, namely L. Cambier, Julien Dillen, Leon Herbo, Henri Permeke, L. Pion, F. Seghers and François Taelemans. Vela others joined Albert Baertsoen, Frantz Charlet, Jean Degreef, Henry De Groux, Jacques Lalang, Jean Delville, James Ensor, Leon Frederic, Frank Leemputten and others. Even before his academy training in 1881, finally closing said Rodolphe Wytsman already exhibited in the Salon of Ghent in 1880 with "The night".
Italian Travel
Financially supported by a friend of his late father, he went in 1882, on an Italian-journey, to Rome and surrounding areas, but the Neapolitan coast, made an unforgettable impression on him. Works dating from that era such as "Fountain in the Villa Borghese in Roma" and "Rocks on Capri". In Italy, he had friendly contacts with other Belgian artists who lived there then: Gustave Vanaise, Jef Lambeaux, Leon Philippet, Eugene Broerman, Alexandre Marcet. In May 1883, Rodolphe Wytsman was back in Belgium; together with Vanaise he exhibited in that year still in the "Cercle Artistique in Ghent. From 1883 on he was to be found annually in Knokke. As developed in the summer, a small but important artists colony where many advanced landscape painters from Ghent and Brussels came down, such as Alfred Verwee, Willy Schlobach, Paul Parmentier, Theo Van Rysselberghe, Omer Coppens, Anna Boch, Félicien Rops, also James Ensor, Willy Finch & Camille Pisarro even came along. Wytsman painted the dunes, the beach, the polders, the Zwin.
Les XX
In 1883, Wytsman was a founding member of "Les XX", the famous avant-garde group in Brussels, inspired by the figure of Octave Maus, and founded by Frantz Charlet, Jean Delvin, Dario Regoyos, Paul Dubois, James Ensor, Willy Finch, Charles Goethals, Fernand Khnopff, Pericles Pantazis, Frans Simons, and Théodore Verstraete. Until 1887, Wytsman sent to work in the annual Salons of Les XX.
The following year, he and Isidore Verheyden resigned from that group and would not exhibit, even if "invited". He resigned without a clear reason , and apparently without hassles, what else is more came binnen "Les XX". In his resignation letter he wrote:
... J'espère que tout en n'etant Vingiste plus, nous conserverons nos bons rapports et le plaisir que j'aurai the vous recevoir souvent à l'atelier ...
In the Salons of Les XX "Wytsman was present with the following titles:
· 1884: "La Ferme du Moulin (Flandre)," "Les Fleurs (West-Flandre)" & "La mare (the dunes Knocke)
· 1885: "Le Moulin de Knocke," "La Neige", "A Melle. Fin d'automne", "A Boitsfort" & "La Prairie '
· 1886: "La Neige", "Pavot et coquelicots. Crepuscule

Henry Rawdon-Hastings
4th Marquess of Hastings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henry Weysford Charles Plantagenet, 4th Marquess of Hastings (22 July 1842 – 10 November 1868), styled Lord Henry Rawdon-Hastings from birth until 1851, was a British peer.
Rawdon-Hastings was the second son of George Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Marquess of Hastings and his wife Barbara née Yelverton, 20th Baroness Grey de Ruthyn.
His father died when Henry was only two years old, and Henry succeeded to his father's titles upon the early death of his older brother Paulyn seven years later, at the age of nine. Later, in 1858, Henry inherited his mother's barony at the age of sixteen.
In 1860, The Times noted that Rawdon-Hastings was one of only three to hold peerages in all three Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland (as Earl of Moira).[1]
In 1862 Lord Hastings became engaged to Alice March Phillipps de Lisle, but they never married (she later married the Hon. Arthur Strutt, younger son of Lord Belper). On 16 July 1864 he married Lady Florence Paget, daughter of Henry Paget, 2nd Marquess of Anglesey. The marriage created a scandal as the bride had been engaged to Henry Chaplin. He died in 1868, aged only 26, with no children. The Marquessate of Hastings became extinct, while the Earldom of Loudoun passed to his eldest sister Lady Edith and his English baronies fell into abeyance between Lady Edith and their three other sisters (all would go to Edith save their mother's, which passed to the second sister Lady Bertha). Florence, Marchioness of Hastings would later remarry Sir George Chetwynd, 4th Baronet.

Serge Raynaud de la Ferriere
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Serge Raynaud de la Ferrière (18 January 1916 – 27 December 1962) was a French religious philosopher.
He was born in Paris, France, the son of Georges Constantine Louis Raynaud, who was an engineer, and Virginie Marie Billet.[citation needed]
His parents moved to Brussels, Belgium when he was two years old, and his mother died there when he was only five years of age.
He studied at several lower schools, and attended the Université Catholique de Louvain where he graduated as a mining engineer in the footsteps of his father and grandfather [sorry, the Université Catholique of Louvain has denied he was a student there]. (There is some question, however, about the actual educational attainments of de la Ferrière (Spanish)). Although he grew up and studied in Belgium he would return to his native France in his early twenties. [he returned to France when he was released from the army, in 1940. This data is registered in the military files.In 1941, he met Louise Baudin to whom he was married in 1944, and with whom he travelled to America, in 1947].
He founded the Universal Great Brotherhood in 1948 in Caracas, Venezuela. It is an organization devoted to merging science, art, and religion.[2].


The Life and Education
At an early age, Serge engaged in para-scientific investigations[citation needed]. He demonstrated an interest in psychology, and began investigating man's relationship with the universe, ancient cultures, linguistics, philosophy, medicine, theology, parapsychology, esoterism and metaphysical studies.[citation needed]
During World War II, he returned to France and worked as a psychologist and began his research into the sciences of astronomy and astrology.

Dick Zimmer
(New Jersey politician)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Alan "Dick" Zimmer (born August 16, 1944) is an AmericanRepublican Partypolitician from New Jersey, who served in both houses of the New Jersey Legislature and in the United States House of Representatives. He was the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey in 1996 and 2008. In March 2010, he was appointed by Governor Chris Christie to head the New Jersey Privatization Task Force.

Early life and career
Zimmer was born on August 16, 1944 in Newark, New Jersey to William and Evelyn Zimmer, the second of two children. In his early years he was raised in Hillside, New Jersey.
His father, a physician, died of a heart attack when he was 3 years old. After his father's death, his mother moved from Hillside to Bloomfield, New Jersey, where she supported the family by working as a clerk at the Sunshine Biscuits warehouse.
They lived in a Bloomfield garden apartment, which Zimmer has referred to as "the New Jersey equivalent of a log cabin."
When Zimmer was 12 years old, his mother married Howard Rubin, a Korean War veteran with three children of his own. The newly combined family moved to Glen Ridge, New Jersey, and Rubin worked at the post office there. Zimmer attended Glen Ridge High School, where he was selected as the class speaker for his graduation ceremony. His mother, suffering from lymphoma, required paramedics to take her from Columbia Presbyterian Hospital to the school auditorium on a stretcher to hear the address. She died several days later. Zimmer attended Yale University on a full academic scholarship and majored in political science, graduating in 1966. In the summer of 1965, he worked in the Washington, D.C. office of Republican U.S. SenatorClifford P. Case, after which time he became active in Republican politics. He attended Yale Law School, where he was an editor the Yale Law Journal. After receiving his LL.B. in 1969 he worked as an attorney in New York and New Jersey for several years, first for Cravath, Swaine & Moore and then for Johnson & Johnson.[3]
From 1974 to 1977, he served as chairman of New Jersey Common Cause, a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy group and think tank with the mission to make political institutions more open and accountable. As chairman he successfully lobbied for New Jersey's Sunshine Law, which made government meetings open to the public. He also championed campaign finance reform, working closely with Thomas H. Kean, then a member of the New Jersey General Assembly. Zimmer then served as treasurer for Kean's reelection campaign.[3]
New Jersey Legislature
After moving to Delaware Township in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, he was elected to the General Assembly in 1981, serving until 1987. He was the prime Assembly sponsor of New Jersey’s first farmland preservation law, resulting in the permanent preservation of 1,222 farms in the state. Zimmer also sponsored the legislation creating the state’s radon detection and remediation program, which became a national model. He was chairman of the Assembly State Government Committee from 1986 to 1987. In 1987, following the death of State Senator Walter E. Foran, Zimmer won a special election to replace him in the New Jersey Senate. He was later elected to a full term.[3] In the Senate he served on the Revenue, Finance and Appropriations Committee.[4]
U.S. House of Representatives
In 1990, Zimmer ran for the United States House of Representatives for the 12th District, then encompassing parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, Somerset, Morris and Warren counties. The seat was open after Jim Courter decided not seek another term after unsuccessfully running for Governor of New Jersey the previous year. In the Republican primary, Zimmer defeated Rodney Frelinghuysen, the early favorite, and Phil McConkey, former wide receiver for the New York Giants.[5] In the general election he defeated Marguerite Chandler, a businesswoman from Somerset County, by a margin of 66 to 34 percent.
Zimmer served three terms in the House, winning reelection in 1992 and 1994. As a Congressman, Zimmer is best known[citation needed] for writing Megan's Law (U.S. Public Law 104-145), which requires notification when a convicted sex offender moves into a residential area. It was named after Megan Kanka, a New Jersey resident who was raped and murdered by convicted sex offender Jesse Timmendequas. He also introduced "no-frills" prison legislation, requiring the elimination of luxurious prison conditions.
As a member of the Ways and Means Committee, he sought the elimination of wasteful spending and undue taxation. He was ranked the most fiscally conservative member of the United States Congress three times by the National Taxpayers Union and was designated a Taxpayer Hero by Citizens Against Government Waste every year he was in office.
Zimmer was also a member of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology and the Committee on Government Operations. As a member of the Environment Subcommittee, he introduced environmental risk-assessment legislation later incorporated in the 1996 amendments to the Clean Water Act.
1996 U.S. Senate Campaign
In 1995, Zimmer lined up support to run in the following year's United States Senate elections, becoming the front-runner among Republicans seeking to face Democratic incumbent Bill Bradley. On August 16, 1995, Bradley announced that he would not seek reelection. Zimmer formally announced his candidacy on

William Milne
(missionary)
William Milne (1785 – June 2, 1822) was the second Protestantmissionary to China, after his colleague, Robert Morrison[1].


Scottish roots
Milne was born near Huntly, in the rural parish of Kennethmont in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
His father died when he was only six years old, and his mother taught him at home. While he was still very young, he worked on a farm for a period of time before being apprenticed to a carpenter.
While excelling at carpentry, he also was reported to have distinguished himself by his profanity. But, at the age of sixteen, he was converted to Christianity. In 1804 he was received as a member of the Congregational church at Huntly.
Missionary career
About 1809, he applied to the London Missionary Society. After conferring with a group of minsters at Aberdeen, he was sent to Gosport, where he studied under David Bogue for three years. Ordained as a missionary to China in July, 1812, he proposed
“
to go from house to house, from village to village, from town to town, and from country to country, where access may be gained, in order to preach the Gospel to all who will not turn away their ear from it.[2]

Milne was married soon after his ordination to Rachel Cowie, the daughter of Charles Cowie, Esq. of Aberdeen. They soon departed for China, leaving about August 1812. Due to delays, they didn't arrive in Macau until July 4, 1813. Milne, with his wife and infant son were expelled by the Roman Catholic priests there after three days, and he left for Guangzhou, where he was able to begin study of the Chinese language. His quote regarding the difficulty of an English-speaker acquiring the Chinese tongue has been frequently repeated:[3]
“
[Learning the Chinese language requires] bodies of iron, lungs of brass, heads of oak, hands of spring steel, eyes of eagles, hearts of apostles, memories of angels, and lives of Methuselah.

After six months with Robert Morrison as his first and only help that had come to join the work from England, he took Morrison's advice to visit Java and the Chinese settlements in the Indonesian archipelago. Milne agreed and traveled south, distributing tracts and books, finally returning to Guangzhou on September 5 to spend the winter of 1813-1814 there.
Milne spent most of his missionary career in the British Straits Settlements of Malacca, beginning in the Spring of 1815. He set up a printing press and school, continuing to preach the Gospel to the local Chinese.
In January 1816, Milne visited Penang, and established a printing press there also.
Milnee was also the first Principal of The Anglo Chinese College at Malacca. He collaborated more with Morrison to produce the second complete Chinese version of the Bible, translating the books of Deuteronomy through Job.
Liang Fa, converted to Christianity in 1815 and baptized by Milne, became the first Chinese Protestant minister and evangelist. Liang Fa later became renowned as the author of the Christian literature that inspired Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping Rebellion.
In 1819 he published a tract "The Two Friends", which became the most widely used Chinese Christian tract until the early twentieth century. Milne was remarkably prolific for one who came to literary work so late in life, and twenty-one Chinese works are attributed to him. Several were of substantial length; one was the Chinese Monthly Magazine (察世俗每月統記傳 Chashisu Meiyue Tongjizhuan), the first Chinese language magazine in the modern sense of the word; that ran from 1815 to 1822 and totaled several hundred pages. In addition, he produced two substantial books and a Malacca periodical

Shamsuddeen Usman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Shamsuddeen Usman (born 18 September 1949 in Garangamawa area of Kano, Nigeria) is the Minister of National Planning, Chairman of the Steering Committee on Nigeria Vision 2020 and immediate past Finance Minister of Nigeria. He is an Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) and a Member of the Federal Executive Council, National Economic Council and the Economic Management Team.
Dr Usman was the first Nigerian Minister to publicly declare his assets before assuming office as a public officer, an act considered as a sign of accountability and transparency in a country noted for its high levels of corruption.


Education & Personal Life
Shamsuddeen Usman was born to a family living in Warure Quarters of Kano State.
His Father, an Islamic scholar, died when he was about six years old.
He began his education at Dandago Primary School. After a secondary school education at the prestigious Government College Keffi and King's College, Lagos, he gained a BSc. in Economics from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria. He later won a National scholarship to study for his MSc. and PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science[1] between 1977-1980. During his first two years at the London School of Economics[2], he served as a teaching assistant for the final year class in Public Finance.
Work Life
From 1974-1976, Usman worked as the Planning Officer for the Kano State Ministry of Economic Planning. He taught Economic Analysis and Public Finance to students in Ahmadu Bello University, Bayero University Kano and University of Jos between 1976-1981. He was a Controller at the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB) and then served as the Director of Budget/ Special Economic Adviser to the Kano State Government between 1981-1985. Usman was then appointed the General Manager of NAL Merchant Bank (currently Sterling Bank).
Impact of Privatisation and Commercialisation (Phase I) on Nigerian Economy
From 1989-1991 Usman served as the pioneer Director General of The Technical Committee of Privatisation and Commercialisation, now the Bureau of Public Enterprises and was responsible for the Phase I programme with the task to reform public enterprises, as an integral and critical component of the IMF led Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), which was started in 1986.
Under his supervision, about 88 public enterprises were either fully or partially privatised without any foreign technical assistance. The programme succeeded in relieving the government of the huge and growing burden of financing public enterprises, minimised the overstretching of government’s managerial capacity through a redefinition of the role of the supervising ministries, created a large body of shareholders and deepened and broadened the Nigerian Capital Market to the position of being the most developed in black Africa. The market capitalisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) through which the shares were sold has grown from N8.9 billion in 1987 (before privatisation) to N65.5 billion in 1994 (after the Phase-I). The catalytic effect of the volume of shares released into the market via the privatisation exercise cannot be over empahsised.[1]
The TCPC transformed to the current Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in 1993