Edward VI of England

Edward VI was the son of Henry VIII of England and Jane Seymour. The birth of Edward on October 12, 1537 was difficult, and his mother died 12 days after his entry into this world.

Prince Edward in 1539, by Hans Holbein the Younger

He became king when Henry VIII died on January 28, 1547. The first Protestant ruler of England.at the age of 9, because he was so young, the realm was governed by a Regency Council.

Edward VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey on February 20, 1547.  As Edward was only nine years old at the time, the coronation ceremony was reduced from 12 to 7 hours long. The boy king’s golden throne also had to be boosted with two cushions.

At the coronation service, Archbishop Cranmer affirmed the royal supremacy and called Edward a second Josiah, urging him to continue the reformation of the Church of England, "the tyranny of the Bishops of Rome banished from your subjects, and images removed."

Edward as Prince of Wales, 1546. 

Edward VI  had two regents. For the first two-and-a-half years of his reign, the boy king's uncle, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset,  was Lord Protector and advised and guided Edward. Somerset was replaced by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.

Henry VIII had allowed Edward to be educated by convinced Protestant tutors in sympathy to his sixth wife, Catherine Parr's Protestant inclinations. As a result the boy king was a staunch Protestant.

King Edward, was said to have read twelve chapters of scripture daily and enjoyed sermons, and was commemorated by John Foxe as a "godly imp."

Edward's reign is mainly remembered for the changes made to the Church of England while he was king. His Archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, wrote the Book of Common Prayer in English rather than Latin, so the. common person could now understand what was being said. They were intended to be the basis for worship throughout the Anglican Church.

Edward's Act of Uniformity enforced the use of the Book of Common Prayer and outlawed the Mass. Priests did not have to dress in the bright clothing associated with the Catholic Church and they were also allowed to marry.

Edward had a long pointed face with fine features, dark eyes and a small full mouth.

Edward VI forbade the cult of saints and destroyed images and idols in churches. Under his rule the English Reformation blossomed.

Edward had never been a healthy boy and he died on July 6, 1553 of tuberculosis when he was 15 and a half years old.

After the death of Edward VI, the powerful Duke of Northumberland plotted to exclude the rightful successor to the throne, the king’s Catholic sister Mary. Edward's cousin the devout 15-year-old Protestant Lady Jane Grey was installed instead but she was executed nine days later.

Edward III of England

EARLY LIFE

Edward III (1312 – 1377)  was born at Windsor Castle on November 13, 1312. His mother was Queen Isabella of France, his father Edward II.

Edward was handed over to a nursemaid and quickly given a separate household, away from his parents.

In 1314 he settled at Wallingford Castle. As the years went by his household expanded to include his guardian, steward and treasurer as well as his tutors and servants. Edward grew up speaking both English and French fluently.

APPEARANCE

Edward was handsome, with fair-haired good looks. However by the end of his reign the senile monarch was a mess, an imbecile with an unkempt long white beard.

Shoes were becoming extremely long and pointed during his reign. Edward enacted a law that the spikes, or points of shoes should not exceed two inches.

MARRIAGE

His wife was the beautiful and charming Philippa of Flainault, the daughter of the ruler of Holland and Zeeland, whom he married in 1328.

She was his second cousin and a papal dispensation was needed to secure the marriage of such a close relative.

Philippa had dark brown hair, a high and broad forehead, her face narrowed between her blackish brown deep eyes. She had a smooth nose, wide mouth, full lips and brown skin.

The couple eventually produced thirteen children, including five sons who reached maturity. Their eldest son and Edward's heir, Edward the Black Prince, born in 1330, would become a famed military leader.

Despite having an unusually happy marriage, Edward was a notorious womaniser. However there is no evidence of any actual infidelity on the king's part until the greedy Alice Perrers (1366-1400) became his mistress in 1363, when she was 15 years of age; this was six years before the queen's death.

Alice Perrers was originally Queen Philippa's's Lady of Honour. She looked after him and rather dominated him in Edward's final years as he sunk into senility.

SPORTS

In 1349, Edward declared the young men of England were forgetting their archery, because of "vain plays which have no profit in them". .He declared "by the people pleasing themselves with divers games such as handball, bandy ball, football...the realm is likely in a short time to be destitute of archers. " Landowners who allowed such sports to be played on their land risked a fine of £20 plus three years imprisonment.

Edward himself liked jousting and was a brilliant tournament performer.

He celebrated the victory at Crécy in the Hundred Years war by hosting a series of jousting tournaments at a huge arena at Smithfield.

EATING AND DRINKING

He was known for dressing up as a pheasant for banquets while his soldiers came as swans.

REIGN

Edward was crowned King of England at the age of 14 on February 1, 1327 after his father was forced to abdicate.

During Edward's minority, a council of regency nominally ruled England, but the actual power was in the hands of Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.

Edward's hold on the throne was initially was very shaky because of tension between him and Mortimer. During a council meeting in Nottingham, Edward's men forced their way into Mortimer's apartments, captured him and had him drawn on an oxhide to the gallows at Tyburn, where he was hanged on November 29, 1330.

 Tyburn Tree (Source Wikipedia Commons)

                         
Edward banished his mother from court, and she was forced to surrender her riches and become a Clarissan nun.

Edward was the first post-1066 English king to speak in English rather than French as his mother tongue.

He replaced French with English as the language of government and consolidated parliament as the only maker of laws.

MILITARY RECORD

An accomplished Knight, Edward was at war for most of his reign.

In 1333 Edward attempted to force rule on Scotland by his victory at Hadidon. He forced Scotland's King David II to seek refuge in France for eight years.

In 1337 Edward began the Hundred Years war by claiming the French throne by right of his mother.

Having obtained a loan of £1.4 million from Florentine banks and pledging his crown jewels, to pay for the Hundred Years War, Edward found he was unable to pay it back. Consequently he was brought under a petition of bankruptcy and the unfortunate Florentine banks went under.

The war went well for England; the victories of Crécy and Poitiers led up to the 1360 Treaty of Brétigny, by which Edward ceased his claim to the throne, in return for Calais, Aquitaine and Gascony.

The French renewed the war in 1369 and regained all but Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne from the English who were weakened considerably by the Black Death.

With the Treaty of Bruges in 1375, the great English possessions in France were reduced to only the coastal towns of Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne

HOMES

When Edward outgrew his kingly accommodation in the Tower of London, he brought a building next to St Andrews church and used it to house all his courtiers' robes of state.

Edward was responsible for turning the fortress like building on the north side of the upper ward at Windsor into royal residence apartments. To oversee the construction Edward employed William of Wykeham as clerk of works

HEALTH

Edward lost his daughter, Joan and a third of his subjects to the plague between 1348 and 1350.

In his old age, Edward went slightly mad bought on partly by grief over the death of Edward the Black Prince, believing his loss was a punishment for usurping his father's crown.

DEATH

Around September 29, 1376, Edward fell ill with a large abscess. After a brief period of recovery in February 1377, he passed away of a stroke at the Ancient Royal Manor of Sheen, Kew on June 21, 1377.

His tomb in Westminster Abbey is made from a wax portrait modelled from Edward's dead body.

Source Historytoday.com

Edward II of England

Edward II was born in Caernarvon, Wales on April 25, 1284 to Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, who died when Edward was five.

EARLY LIFE

A few days after his birth, young Edward was presented to the assembled Welsh Chieftains by his Father who declared "Eich Dyn," saying in Welsh "This is your Man,"  starting the custom of the Crown Prince of Wales.

Edward I (left) declaring his son Edward (right) the Prince of Wales (early 14th C)

Edward became heir to the throne when he was just a few months old, upon the death of his elder brother Alfonso.

His father, a notable military leader, made a point of training young Edward in warfare and statecraft starting in his childhood.

Edward I died at Burgh by Sands while on his way to another campaign against Scotland. Edward travelled from London immediately after the news reached him, and on July 20, 1307 he was proclaimed king.

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER

Tall, majestic, handsome and strong, Edward was as physically as impressive as his father.

King Edward II of England

The foppish king wore fantastic, extravagant clothes.

Edward had an introspective and insecure personality and he craved affection.  He had been so dominated by his father that he had little confidence in himself, and was always in the hands of some favorite with a stronger will than his own.

He was according to the Victorian historian William Stubbs, "the first king after the Conquest who was not a man of business."

RELATIONSHIPS

In 1290, Edward's father had confirmed the Treaty of Birgham, in which he promised to marry his six-year old son to the young Margaret of Norway, who had a potential claim to the crown of Scotland. Margaret died in the Orkney Islands on her way to marry Edward. Her death sparked off the disputed succession which led to the Wars of Scottish Independence.

Edward's best friend at court was a good looking son of a Gascon knight, Piers Galveston. A month after his succession, Edward made him the Earl of Cornwall and married him off to his niece, Margaret.

His close friendship with the king, together with his arrogance, enraged the barons, who demanded Edward's banishment.  Ironically it was the king who had originally chosen Gaveston to be a suitable friend for his then teenage son.

After twice being forced to send Gaveston into exile, then relenting, Edward lost his close companion when his enemies captured and murdered him. Ironically this put Edward in a stronger position as there was an outcry against the murderers.

Edward married in January 1308 the beautiful Isabella (1292-1358), the so called "She Wolf of France" daughter of the French king, King Philip IV.

At his coronation Edward was more attentive to Piers Galveston than he was to new wife and he gave away many of his wedding presents to his friend. Isabella was infuriated by Edward’s favoritism towards Piers especially when he gave his companion most of her best jewellery.

During their marriage Isabella was neglected by Edward, who spent much of his time with his male favorites.

Isabella, an extravagant dresser in her own way was not faithful to the king, preferring the attentions of Roger Mortimer, one of Edward's disaffected barons.

Edward imprisoned Roger Mortimer who escaped from the Tower of London to France, where he met up with Isabella who had been conducting negotiations at the French court. They landed in Essex, marched to London and captured Edward who was imprisoned in various castles.

Edward took refuge in Caerphilly Castle from his estranged wife and her lover. He was forced to flee when she besieged the castle leaving behind half his treasure and most of his clothes.

Imprisoned in Berkeley Castle attempts were made to starve him to death. Dead animals were also thrown into a pit in his room in the hope that the smell would make him sick and die.

Despite all this Edward and Isabella had two sons, Edward III (1312 – 1377) and John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall (1316-1336) plus two daughters, Eleanor (1318) and Joanna (1321-1362), wife of David II of Scotland.

Edward had also fathered an illegitimate son, Adam FitzRoy, who accompanied his father in the Scottish campaigns of 1312, and who died shortly after on September 18, 1322. Adam was buried at Tynemouth Priory twelve days later; his father paid for a silk cloth with gold thread to be placed over his body.

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

A common sight in court was the eccentric Edward wheeling a tame lion in a cart.

Edward banned football in London in 1314  because too many players were brawling. “For as much as there is a great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils might arise which God forbid. We commend and forbid on behalf of the king on pain of imprisonment such game to be used in the city in future.”

One of Edward's hobbies was digging ditches, which caused his subjects to fear for his sanity.

Edward was also good at handicrafts and enjoyed horse racing, rowing and swimming.

His main interest was acting and singing, though he also took pleasure in hunting and the practice of mechanical crafts.

GOVERNMENT AND LAW

When Edward II decreed in 1324 that one inch should be the measure of three dried barleycorns, the English shoe sizing began. This ruling made it possible to produce well-fitting shoes in large numbers, rather than making each pair based on an individual’s measurements. The longest normal foot measured 39 barleycorns, or 13 inches, and was called size 13. Smaller sizes were graded down from this number, each by a third of an inch.

Edward's scrawl is the earliest surviving royal signature before marks or seals were used.

MILITARY CAMPAIGNS

The prince took part in several Scots campaigns. However, when Edward I died, on July 7, 1307, one of the first acts of the now King Edward II, was to abandon the Scots campaign on which his father had set his heart.

In 1314 he was defeated by Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn. Edward invaded Scotland again eight years later totally unsuccessfully, the only booty taken in the campaign being a lame cow. In 1323 he signed a truce with Bruce.

The Battle of Boroughbridge was fought on March 16, 1322, between the forces of King Edward II of England and the rebel army of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster. The battle took place near the town of Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, England.

Thomas of Lancaster was a leading member of the English nobility who had become increasingly disenchanted with King Edward II's rule. He had previously rebelled against the king in 1317, but was pardoned and restored to his lands and titles. However, tensions between the two men continued to simmer, and in 1322 Lancaster raised an army and marched on York in an attempt to depose the king.

The two armies met near Boroughbridge, where the royalist forces under the command of Sir Andrew Harclay successfully ambushed and defeated Lancaster's army. Lancaster himself was captured and later executed for treason. The victory allowed King Edward II to hold on to power for another five years, although his rule remained controversial and unstable.

PRETENDERS

John Deydras (died 1318), also John of Powderham, was a clerk who claimed to be the real King Edward II, but they had been swapped as babies. He attempted to claim a palace and challenged Edward to single combat. At his trial, he confessed to making it up and blamed his cat, which he said had been possessed by the devil. Both he and the cat were executed by hanging and his body was burnt.

DEATH

Edward's Berkeley Castle jailers initially tried to starve him to death. They eventually succeeded in murdering him by thrusting a red hot poker up his rectum on the night of September 21, 1327.

It was announced that the king had died a natural death, and he was buried in St Peter's Abbey at Gloucester, now the cathedral, where his son afterwards erected a magnificent tomb.

The Archbishop preached as his text on the coronation of Edward's successor, "vox populi vox dei" (The voice of the people is the voice of God.")

Edward virtually achieved sainthood in the years after his death, due to his violent end. Within a few years, pilgrims were visiting his tomb at Gloucester Castle.

Edward II - detail of tomb. By Philip Halling, 

Edward I of England

Edward I (1239 – 1307) was born at the Palace of Westminster, the eldest son of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence.

APPEARANCE

Edward was nicknamed Longshanks as he was very tall for medieval times (6ft 2) with very long arms and legs.

His height made him the tallest English king apart from the 6ft 4in Edward IV.

The English king was golden haired, ruddy cheeked and majestic with an inherited drooping eyelid.

Edward wore cleverly painted, indecently short tunics, fur-lined with wide, almost pointlessly long pointed sleeves.

He is said to have spoken with a lisp.

MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN

In 1254 at the age of 15 Edward married the placid 8-year old Spanish Eleanor of Castile.

Eleanor bore him sixteen children, though only one son, the future Edward II and five daughters survived infancy.

Edward was a bad tempered father but he loved his wife and he remained faithful to her. She accompanied him everywhere including on crusade and his military expeditions to Wales.

Eleanor died in 1290, of blood poisoning after sucking the pus out of her husband's septic battle wound, near Lincoln.

Her death affected Edward deeply and he displayed his grief by erecting twelve Eleanor crosses, one at each place where her funeral cortège stopped for the night.  Three still survive at Geddington and Hardingstone in Northamptonshire and Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire.

King Edward erected the original Charing Cross in London in the middle of the village of Charing at the spot where Queen Eleanor's coffin last halted on it's way from Harby, Nottinghamshire to Westminster. The cross was destroyed by Puritans in 1647.

Eleanor was finally buried at Westminster Abbey. The internal organs of the late Queen can be found at Lincoln Minister. They were not transported with her body to London as they would have rotted before they got there.

In 1299 Edward married Marguerite of France (known as the "Pearl of France" by her English subjects) (d 1318). The sister of Philip III of France, she bore him another two sons, Thomas and Edward and one daughter.

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

Edward I  had a kingly appetite and ate large quantities of meat such as beef, mutton, veal, game and poultry as well as some fish such as carp, eels, lamprey and pike.

Edward I ordered his sheriffs in 1274 to provide 278 bacon hogs, 450 porkers, 440 fat oxen, 430 sheep, and 22,600 hens and capons for his coronation feast.

His 1307 royal inventory showed seven forks- six silver and one gold and thousands of knives.

Edward was fascinated by the legends of King Arthur and his knights. He liked to establish Round Tables on the Arthurian pattern after special occasions.

The athletic Edward like many Kings of his day enjoyed hunting in the forests, hawking along the rivers  or participating in jousting tournaments.

The first ever recorded mention of cricket can be found in Edward's wardrobe accounts which mention a match at Newenden Kent.
                       

BELIEFS

Edward's motto was "Pactum Serva" (meaning "keep troth"). He later had this transcribed on his tomb.

IN 1296 Pope Boniface VIII issued “Clericis Laicos” which threatened excommunication for any lay ruler who taxed the clergy and any clergyman who paid the taxes. Despite being pious himself, Edward I retorted by decreeing if the clergy did not pay, they would be stripped of all legal protection and the King’s sheriff would seize their properties. The pope backed down.

To finance his war to conquer Wales, Edward I taxed the Jewish moneylenders. However, the cost of the king's ambitions soon drained the money-lenders dry. Anti-Semitism, a long-existing attitude, increased substantially, and when the Jews could no longer pay, the state accused them of disloyalty. Already restricted to a limited number of occupations, Edward abolished their right to lend money.

Edward decreed that all Jews (numbering about 16,000) must wear a yellow patch in the shape of a star attached to their outer clothing to identify them in public, an idea Adolf Hitler would echo 650 years later.

In the course of King Edward's persecution of the Jews, he arrested all the heads of Jewish households. The authorities took over 300 of them to the Tower of London and executed them, while killing others in their homes.

Finally, on July 18, 1290, the king issued the Edict of Expulsion, banishing all Jews from England. They emigrated to France and the Netherlands, as well as to countries such as Poland, which at that time protected them.

GOVERNMENT AND LAW

On November 16, 1272, King Henry III died and as his eldest son, Prince Edward became King of England as Edward I.

Prince Edward became the English king while travelling during the Ninth Crusade. He did not return to England for nearly two years to assume the throne.

Shortly after his return from the Ninth Crusade, Edward I was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey on August 19, 1274. 

Originally he chose to be called Edward IV (after Edward the Elder, Edward the Martyr and Edward the Confessor) who had all reigned before 1066 when numbering of Kings was introduced.

One day Edward was crossing Rochester Bridge on a horse hired from a certain Richard Lombard. When the poor animal was blown into the River Medway and drowned, Lombard received 12 shillings from the King in compensation for his loss.

King Edward passed a statute in 1275 decreeing that "time immemorial" was any point in time prior to the year when King Richard I began his reign in 1189.

Edward was one of the founding Fathers of Parliament. He made the House of Commons common by allowing in commoners to sit with the nobles.

The Model Parliament was originally called when Edward was informed, whilst hunting, that Llewelyn ab Gruffydd and his followers were revolting. His nobles, clergy and knights met under an oak in Sherwood Forest and decided to fight without delay. This was the first gathering of the Lords and Commons. By summoning frequent meetings to pass his orders onto his subjects, the English king gave Parliament an accepted place in the English system.

After the town of Winchelsea was submerged, Edward rebuilt it using a grid pattern. This was the first example in Britain of town planning.

CRUSADES AND WARS

In 1264 the future Edward I was captured with his father Henry III at the Battle of Lewes by the rebel leader, Simon de Montfort. The prince later escaped when one day, he asked if he could ride the guards horses and raced them one by one. When Edward got to the last horse, he rode off to freedom, and all the other horses were too tired to give chase.

Montfort was defeated at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Within two years the rebellion was extinguished.

Edward led a crusade in the Holy Land between 1270-74, accompanied by Queen Eleanor, which resulted in little material gain. He led two raids into Palestine, and survived a Moslem assassination attempt.

At Acre during the Ninth Crusade, Edward was struck by an assassin's poisoned dagger. Eleanor devotedly cared for the king and saved his life. The Arabic word "assassin" was introduced into the English language through this incident.

Arriving in Sicily on his journey home, Edward was met on with the news that his father had died on November 16, 1272 and he was the new English king. Rather than hurrying home at once, he made a leisurely journey northwards. It took him nearly two years to return to England to assume the throne.

Edward established English rule over Wales between 1282-84. He promised the Welsh chieftains a prince who could speak no English and in 1284 he presented them with his baby son, starting the custom of the Crown Prince of Wales.

Edward I fleeced the farmers by constantly pushing up the wool tax to pay for his battles. The Welsh wars cost ten times the king’s annual income.

Following the death of young Margaret in 1290,  Scotland was left without a king. There were fourteen claimants and the competitors agreed to hand over the realm to Edward until a decision was made. John Balliol was chosen in 1292, however Edward continued to push his claim as overlord of Scotland. He continued to interfere in some of the legal affairs of Scotland, and insisted the Scots provided military service in his army. This caused the Scots to make an alliance with France.

Edward responded by invading Scotland in 1296 and taking Berwick-on-Tweed (see below) on March 30th in a particularly bloody attack. The English king decided to make an example of the town and massacred all its inhabitants.

Although the Scottish conflict seemed settled in 1296, it was started again by William Wallace, who started a rebellion. He defeated a large English force at Stirling Bridge in 1297 while Edward was in Flanders. Edward defeated Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk the following year. After that the Scots avoided open battle in favour of raiding England with small groups.

Edward I once built the largest trebuchet ever in order to lay siege to a Scottish castle. The sight of the giant trebuchet so intimidated the Scots that they tried to surrender, but Edward sent them back so he could use his new weapon to launch 300 lb projectiles at the castle.

The current coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, was originally made for Edward I. For centuries, it incorporated the Stone of Scone, on which the Scottish kings were once crowned. Edward appropriated it in 1296 to demonstrate Scotland's subservience to the English monarchy.

DEATH

Edward developed dysentery on his way to another campaign against Scotland, and his condition deteriorated. On July 6, 1307 he encamped at Burgh by Sands, just south of the Scottish border. When his servants came the next morning to lift him up so that he could eat, he died in their arms.

Edward's last words to his son, his successor Edward II, were "carry my bones before you on your march, for the rebels will not be able to endure the sight of me alive or dead."

The epitaph on his Westminster tomb reads "Here lies Edward, the hammer of the Scots."

The tomb of King Edward I in Westminster Abbey was opened in 1774 by the learned Society of Antiquaries. He was found clad in a purple cloak like a Roman emperor and his body was almost perfectly preserved.

Source Daily Express

Education

The Aztecs were one of the few ancient civilizations where education was mandatory for everyone, boys and girls from all social status were educated at home and later at schools (although the kind of school depended on gender and class).

During the Middle Ages big churches, cathedrals and monasteries provided schools for boys who wanted to become churchmen. At these schools the boys would learn to speak, read and write in Latin and how to study and discuss religious books.

John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), (usually called just 'Comenius') was a 17th century Czech bishop. Comenius forged an Europe-wide program of Christian-based, ecumenical education that earned him the title "Father of Modern Education." His educational plan transformed the way children were schooled.

Comenius invented the idea of a modern school textbook which used pictures as well as prose to get its message across.

In 1687 the Frenchman Francois Fenelon wrote his Treatise on the Education of Girls in which he argued that a sound education depended on the fulfilment of a child’s natural abilities.

Peter I of Russia emphasized the significance of education through a decree on January 31, 1714, which mandated compulsory education for the Russian nobility. According to this decree, children of the nobility, as well as government clerks and officials aged between ten and fifteen, were required to study mathematics and geometry. Subsequently, these students were dispatched to different regions of the country to instruct others in the same subjects, with their salaries funded by the state. Only upon demonstrating mastery of the material and receiving a certificate of completion were these individuals permitted to marry.

Schoolmaster Christopher Dock split his time between two Mennonite schools in Pennsylvania. He wrote in 1750 Schul Ordnung, or School Management, the first published textbook on educational method in Britain's American colonies. For twenty years, he refused to publish the book, as he was afraid that it would look like he was trying to build a "monument" to himself.

The Commission of National Education was the central educational authority in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, created by the Sejm and the King Stanisław August Poniatowski on October 14, 1773. Because of its vast authority and autonomy, it is considered the first Ministry of Education in European history.

Algebra for national schools, (1782).

Emma Hart Willard (1787 – 1870) was an American women's rights activist who dedicated her life to education. She opened the Troy Female Seminary in 1814 to teach subjects not then available to women. Willard believed that women could master topics like mathematics and philosophy rather than just subjects taught at finishing school.

Academician, the first successful educational magazine, began publication in New York City in 1818.

Catharine Esther Beecher (1800-78) (daughter of Lyman Beecher, sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe). founded the Hartford Female Seminary in 1823, launching a life-long campaign as lecturer, author, and advocate for women's education.

Robert College of Istanbul, Turkey was founded on September 16, 1863 by Christopher Robert, an American philanthropist. The institution is the oldest American school still in existence in its original location outside the United States.

Gould Hall, Robert College of Istanbul, Turkey. By Wikipedia  

The 1902 Education Act was established in Britain to streamline administration by transferring functions of school boards to county and country boards, for the first time giving them the power to provide secondary schools. The establishment of local authority maintenance of predominately Anglican schools aroused the wrath of the Nonconformists who objected to the subsiding of Anglican education.

Maria Montessori opened her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome, Italy on January 6, 1907.

The Mexican Constitution, approved by the Constitutional Congress on February 5, 1917, was the first document in history to state that every person has the right to an education. It established the right to education as a fundamental principle, guaranteeing access to education for all citizens, regardless of their social status, race, or gender. The Mexican Constitution was a significant moment in the history of human rights and marked a major milestone in the fight for universal education.

Cover of the original copy of the Constitution

In 1963 the US Supreme Court decided to ban school prayer against the wishes of the vast majority of the public.

More than half of Canada's population has a college degree, making it the most educated country in the world.

Girls in the UK have been getting higher grades than boys at school and university for nearly a century.

Sources Chronicle of The World,, Christianity.com

Saint Edmund

Edmund is thought to have been born in 841 and to have acceded to the East Anglian throne in around 855.

On November 20, 869  the Danes defeated the king of East Anglia, St Edmund at an unidentified place known as Haegelisdun. He was taken captive by them, tied to a tree and when he refused to deny his Christian faith or surrender his kingdom, shot with arrows.

A medieval illumination depicting the death of Edmund the Martyr 

Edmund’s cult was well- established before the century closed and in 903 his remains were interred at a monastery at Beadoriceworth, the modern Bury St Edmunds.

King Canute built an abbey on the site in 1020 housing the shrine.

Edmund's shrine became one of the most famous in Europe and for a time he was the official Patron Saint of England.

He was the first patron saint of England before St George.

Edmund’s saintly reputation was so strong that rebel English barons met at his shrine in 1214 before confronting King John with the Charter of Liberties, the forerunner of the Magna Carta.

Campaigners tried to have him reinstated as patron saint in 2006 and 2013.

Source Daily Mail

Thomas Edison

EARLY LIFE

Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847 and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan.

He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (1804–1896, born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, Canada) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871, born in Chenango County, New York).

His father Samuel, a shingle maker, was involved in a plot to overthrow the Canadian government but he managed to flee back to the USA. (Thomas was named after the barge captain Alva Bradley who helped smuggle his family to Milan, Ohio) .Samuel later became a successful grain feed dealer.

His mother Nancy was a school teacher.

Thomas left Port Huron School after three months as they thought he was too stupid to teach. His teachers thought him stupid as he queried every answer given to him. So bad were Thomas' reports that his school teacher mother took him out of school and taught him herself from the age of 7 to 12.

At the age of 9 Thomas read Parker's Natural and Experimental Philosophy which covered everything from steam engines to balloons and illustrated many experiments. As a result he set up a laboratory in the corner of his house. Every penny went to the corner drug store for chemicals.

Edison as a boy

By the time he was a teenager, Edison had read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy amongst others.

At the age of 15 he brought a set of the writings of Michael Faraday.

Edison began his entrepreneurial career as a youth selling snacks and candy on the railroad. Within two years he was employing other boys

After Edison snatched three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from the path of an oncoming train and was given a telegraph lesson by the boy's grateful father. Thomas became one of the best telegraphers in the USA.

In April 1862 during his newsboy times Edison read about the civil war Battle of Shiloh. He brought 1,000 copies of the Detroit Free Press with accounts of this bloody battle. Edison arranged for news of this battle to be telegraphed up line to waiting passengers at the stations, hawked up the price and raked in the cash.

Edison was a famously fast telegraph operator. Some of his earliest inventions related to electrical telegraphy, including a stock ticker.

Around 1862, Edison started printing and published a weekly newspaper The Grand Trunk Herald. It was the first newspaper typeset and printed on a moving train.

Edison set up a laboratory in the baggage car where he kept his newspapers One day he was making an experiment in his baggage car lab when a stick of phosphorus accidentally set the car on fire. The conductor threw out young Edison and his equipment thus ending his railroading days.

Edison also worked as a pig slaughterer and started a business selling vegetables. He could reputedly guess a man's weight correctly by simply looking at him.

Edison started working at the age of 22 for a ticker tape service company for stockbrokers. When the system broke down and panic set in Edison fixed the broken spring and normal service was resumed. The grateful management made Edison foreman on the spot. He used the money to set himself up as a consulting engineer.

APPEARANCE

Medium height, 5' 10" (1.78 m), Edison had a very large head, tobacco stained teeth and acid strained hands. He had the complexion of one who didn't see much of the light of day. Edison was nicknamed "The Old Man" by his employees.

Edison had five dots, like the ones you see on dice, tattooed on his left forearm.

Edison wore plain attire preferring to wear the same old dirty suit for years on end.

He never wore an overcoat, preferring to wear a second set of underclothes as it restricted his movement.

MARRIAGES AND CHILDREN

Edison suffered from deafness and he taught his fiancee, Mary Sitwell, morse code. He proposed by tapping out the message in her hand. She answered in the same way. After their marriage they often spoke to each other in morse code.

He married Mary Stilwell (1855-1884) in 1871. They were happy despite the workaholic Thomas spending little time with his wife.

They had three children—Marion Estelle, Thomas Jr., and William Leslie. Thomas nicknamed Marion "Dot" and Thomas junior "Dash" after telegraphs.

Edison was so upset with Thomas Jr’s ineptitude in business, that he paid him an allowance of $35 a week to use a different name (Burton Willard).

Mary died at the age of 29 of typhoid fever. Thomas was grief stricken and dealt with it by losing himself in work.

Thomas Edison met the beautiful Mina Miller, 18 years his junior, at the home of a mutual friend, the inventor Ezra Gilliland. The inventor taught her Morse code so that they could converse in secret, even while the family watched. This is how Edison proposed marriage and how she responded "yes."

Mina Miller Edison in 1906

The two married on February 24, 1886. She bore him three more children, Madeline, Charles and Theodore. Charles later became the governor of New Jersey.

Both his wives suffered from severe depression. Edison's eldest son, Thomas junior became an alcoholic and a hypochondriac who committed suicide.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

Edison believed in a good hearty breakfast to work upon but didn't eat much else.

Most of the time his wife and children dined alone as Edison only ate when hungry. "A pound of food a day is all I need when I am working," he said.

Edison found formal dinners extremely tedious. On one occasion the company was so dull that the inventor made up his mind to escape to his lab at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately his host accosted him as he hovered near the door. "It certainly is a delight to see you Mr Edison" he said "What are you working on now?" "My exit " replied The Wizard of Menlo Park.

Edison smoked 20 cigars a day - Havanas were his favorite.

He had the life long habit of chewing tobacco.

Edison reportedly drank "wine coca" (a medicinal tonic made from coca leaves, the same type of coca that cocaine is extracted from) during marathon research sessions that ran into the night.

Edison was fond of music, he used to be a keen singer but ruined his voice through trying "to get an intelligible sound through my telephone."

The word "Hello" became popular after Thomas Edison suggested its use when answering the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell, his competitor, preferred "Ahoy."

When they attended a play, his wife kept her hand on her hard of husband's knee and morse coded the words.

Though not blind, Edison liked to read by braille. He had a library of 30,000 volumes mainly scientific works. He read a great deal mainly skimming through books.

Edison had a collection of 5,000 birds.

In 1925 Harvey Firestore gave a bunyan tree to Edison for his rubber experiments. It is now the largest bunyan tree in the continental United States.

MUSIC AND FILM

Edison accidentally invented the phonograph in 1877 while trying to record telegraph signals (see below). He patented the device on February 19, 1878.

The first phonograph consisted of a diaphragm attached to a stylus. A foil-covered cylinder was turned by hand.

The entire contents of the first gramophone record was Edison saying five words "Mary had a little lamb." Edison recorded the disc on December 6, 1877.

His company was considerably late to become involved in the recorded music business. While he did invent the phonograph, his intention was to market it as a business dictation machine. The concept of recorded music never crossed his mind.

In 1926 Edison introduced discs that had 450 grooves to the inch and could provide 20 minutes per side.

Edison's initial attempt to produce an illusion of movement by means of an apparatus called the "optical phonograph" resulted in failure. So in January 1889 Edison switched to plan B and assigned William Dickson, an assistant at his lab at West Orange, New Jersey to work on the development of what was to become the kinescope, a film viewing machine designed for use in amusement arcades. Dickson had earlier trained as a photographer and had more understanding of optics and when he substituted the rectangular sheets of celluloid for 50-foot lengths of the material he knew he had the answer.

Dickson received little thanks for his work and left West Orange in 1895 following a dispute with Edison. His former employer refused to concede that anyone but himself was responsible for bringing the invention to fruition.

Edison failed to recognize the potential of his movie camera and projector and hung on so firmly to his patent that the movie medium was in thrall to him for many years.

Edison was responsible for the first film studio in a frame building  Dubbed "The Black Mariah" (because it resembled a police wagon of the same name) it was built on a lot next to Edison's lab and office. The building, essentially a large wooden shed covered with tar paper, was small enough that it was mounted on circular tracks so it could be turned to accommodate sunlight through an opening in the roof.  His first films consisted of his employees acting out charades for the camera.

Edison made several experimental short films, some lasting only several seconds, mostly to test his equipment. One film, which features a man sneezing, runs for one and one-half seconds.

One of his first films was called Fun in a Chinese Laundry.

Edison was responsible for the first film of a sporting event, a six round boxing match between Mike Leonard and Jack Cushing on June 14, 1894.  Before this he had persuaded the world boxing champion James Corbett to act a boxing fight for his camera.

He produced the first story in a dramatic setting, The Great Train Robbery, in 1903 which cost $100 and earned $20,000. .

INVENTING CAREER

His "invention factory" employed 50 researchers.  In one 14 year period Edison obtained one new invention every five days. He filed a total of 1069 patents before his death.

In 1889 "The Wizard of Menlo Park"  claimed to be working a regular 20 hour day the remaining 4 hours he devoted to sleep.

Whilst living in Memphis, Tennessee in 1866-67 Edison developed a device to electrocute cockroaches.

His first invention was a voting machine for recording votes in congress in 1868 years before it was accepted by American politicians. Each congressman was given a yes or no button.

Thomas Edison received a patent on August 8, 1878 for his mimeograph, a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The patent for "Autographic Printing" covered the electric pen, used for making the stencil, and the flatbed duplicating press. Edison obtained a further patent two years later for his "Method of Preparing Autographic Stencils for Printing."

Advertisement from 1889 for the Edison Mimeograph

The word mimeograph was first used by Albert Blake Dick, when he licensed Edison's patents in 1887.

British chemist Joseph Swan had already invented the lamp but Edison wanted to produce a long lasting one. The American inventor worked thousands of hours on the electric light bulb experimenting with 1,200 different varieties of bamboo before finding the ideal one for the filament on October 21, 1879. He tested it the next day and it lasted 13.5 hours. This would be the invention of the first commercially practical incandescent light.

"Edison Lightbulb Museum of Letters and Manuscripts" by Tieum512 - Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons.

Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park.

He used over 6,000 substances until he found a carbonized bamboo fibre that remained lit for over 1,000 hours in a vacuum.

A British parliamentary committee said of Edison's bulb, "It is good enough for our transatlantic friends but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific man."

Edison was a technologist rather than a scientist, adding little to original scientific knowledge. However, the development of the bulb also introduced the "Edison Effect", a metal heated until red hot emits an electron cloud. Its profound implications for modern electronics were not understood until a number of years later.

Edison bought electricity to the masses by digging up roads and installing cables. He designed the first hydroelectric plant, the steam-driven Pearl Street Plant, which put electric light in the streets and houses in one square of New York on September 4, 1882..

When Edison declared an interest in supplying electricity to subscribers, the gas suppliers, in fear for their domestic lighting business took him to court. They argued that electricity was too dangerous to be supplied to households. The courts’ ruling was that a maximum 100-volt was safe to supply.

Edison tried around 20,000 experiments in his search for a substitute for the storage battery, before he developed the first alkaline storage battery in 1914.  He reacted with the comment "Why I have gotten a lot of results. I know 20,000 things that won't work."

Edison hoped his new storage battery would make electric cars as competitive as gasoline models.

After World War 1 Edison tried to invent a machine which would amplify any weak vibrations from dead people. A sort of electronic Ouija board. It never worked.

Thomas Edison owned 1,093 patents in the US, and 2,332 patents worldwide. This record was not bypassed until 2003.

The phonograph was Edison favorite accomplishment of all his inventions.

MONEY AND FAME

Edison sold his first teleprinter in 1869 to the Western Union for $40,000. It was used for communicating stock exchange prices across the country and he used the proceeds to open up an industrial research laboratory. Edison had only expected about $5,000 for it and was generally surprised to be offered $40,000.

Edison was known as the "Wizard of Menlo Park". Such was his reputation that when he announced in 1878 he was working on electric lighting the price of illuminating gas stocks plunged.

When he learnt that one of his company's batteries was defective, Edison offered to refund all buyers from his own pocket. The resulting refunds cost him over $1 million.

Edison promoted his inventions with parties to which scientists and journalists were invited.

The last years of Edison's life were plagued by financial failures, including plans to make houses out of poured formed concrete (it never caught on with the public) and making rubber from goldenrod (it decomposed too quickly).

BELIEFS

The man who bought electricity to the masses and designed the first hydroelectric plant, received little spiritual light and was a freethinking deist.  He once claimed “So far as the religion of the day is concerned, it’s a damned fake… Religion is all bunk.

Edison's motto which was posted throughout his labs was "There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labour of thinking."

Edison considered ethics had no place in business. His workers worked long hours in unsafe conditions for low pay.

In his later years, Edison often committed social faux pas by making racist and anti-Semitic comments before the press.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS

Edison was sickly as a child, and began to lose his hearing after a bout of scarlet fever. By the age of 12 he was deaf in one ear.

Another contribution to Edison's deafness happened when trying to climb into a freight car with both arms full of newspapers, he was suddenly lifted by the ears into the car by the conductor. Edison felt something snap into his head and his deafness began.

As he grew older Edison developed an iron constitution helped by a stout heart which kept him in good health, often working all night.

Edison was able to exist on very little sleep. He would take a catnap of 30 minutes to an hour after a particularly strenuous period of work. He kept cots in his office and lab.

HOMES

In 1876 Edison moved to Menlo Park, New Jersey and opened the first large scientific workshop in the world.

Edison purchased a 23-roomed home known as Glenmont (see below) in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina in West Orange, New Jersey.

In 1887 Edison moved his laboratory from Menlo Park, New Jersey, to West Orange, New Jersey, where he constructed a large laboratory for experimentation and research.

His summer residence in West Orange, New Jersey had many labour saving devices including a very hard to move turnstile-the reason why it was so heavy was as Edison explained, "Everyone who pushes the turnstile around pumps 8 gallons of water onto the tank of my roof. "

In the early 1900's, Thomas Edison bought a house in Fort Myers, Florida (Seminole Lodge) as a winter retreat. Henry Ford, the automobile magnate lived across the street at his winter retreat (The Mangoes). At first it was the only house in Fort Myers not lit by electric light. Edison said: "There is only one Fort Myers and 90 million people will find it out."

In 1914 Edison's West Orange New Jersey factory burnt to the ground.

His West Orange lab and his 23 room home, Glenmount were designated natural historic sites in the 1950s

TRAVEL

Edison tried to introduce an electric car which he marketed in 1909 but Henry Ford's internal combustion engine proved far more popular .

Edison himself never drove any vehicle (horse buggy or motor car.)

Edison didn't often take holidays, but every 7 or 8 years he would take off to his winter house at Fort Myers, Florida.

DEATH

Edison kept working right up to the time of his death at the age of 84.

Edison attributed his longevity to a diet that included drinking two glasses of milk at each meal.

When Edison lay dying at his home in New Jersey, newspaper reporters were anxiously awaiting a sign from his wife of his death. She signaled her husband's passing by turning a light ON, not off, in his bedroom.

The Wizard of Menlo Park died in his sleep on October 18, 1931 at his West Orange home at 3.24 am.

Henry Ford asked Edison's son, Charles to collect an exhaled breath from the lungs of Ford's dying hero and friend. It was collected in a test tube and Ford kept it along with Edison's hat and shoes.

President Ronald Reagan proclaimed on February 11, 1983 would be the first National Inventors' Day in the United States, in recognition of the enormous contribution inventors make to the nation and the world.  The date was selected, as Thomas Edison, who held over 1,000 patents, was born on that day in 1847.

A small town in southern Kyoto, Japan has a yearly festival and monument next to a shrine dedicated to Thomas Edison. He used the bamboo from the town of Yawata for his filament in the light bulbs which increased the use time from 40 hours to 1,000.

Sources Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats,  Penguin Book of Interviews,  Faber Book of Anecdotes, Daily Mail, Encarta Encyclopedia, IMDB