Thursday 12 April 2012

Friday My-Town Shoot-out - Historic

I live in the suburban ‘township’ of Pensby on the Wirral peninsula in the UK. It is one of the most photographically boring places in the world. I spend a few weeks of my year on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and usually manage a visit to Exeter at least once a year. Since Pensby is near the historic towns of Liverpool and Chester I have a tremendous choice for my Friday Shoot-outs. But today I am showing a couple of buildings that are nearly in Pensby. They are in the adjacent area of Irby. They are two cottages, one of which was formerly Benty Heath Farm (I think).


This cottage was built in 1732  (apologies that this initially said 1832 because of a typing error).


Some of the things that occurred in 1732, the year this cottage was built:-


Feb 22nd – George Washington, first President of the United States, was born (d. 1799)

Feb 26th - 1st mass celebrated at St Joseph's Church (the first American Catholic church), Philadelphia

March 31st – Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer, was born (d. 1809)

April 5th – Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French painter, was born (d. 1806)

April 8th – David Rittenhouse, American astronomer, inventor, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman, and public official, was born . (d. 1796)

April 13tg – Frederick North, Lord North, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1792)

Jun 9th - America's Georgia colony had its beginnings in a charter granted by George II to English philanthropists who included James E. Oglethorpe for lands between the Altamah and Savannah Rivers. Oglethorpe's parliamentary investigations into penal conditions had led him to advance the idea of establishng an American colony for newly freed and unemployed debtors.

Aug 1st - Foundation laid for Bank of England.

Sept 16 – A magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurred in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Dec 4th - Playwright-poet-librettist John Gay died in London aged 47.

Dec 7th - The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London.

Dec 19th - Benjamin Franklin under the name Richard Saunders began publication of "Poor Rich-ard's Almanack". Primarily an agricultural handbook, it gave sunset and sunrise times, high and low tides, weather predictions, and optimum dates for planting and harvesting. It also offers practical suggestions, recipes, advice on personal hygiene, and folksy urgings to be frugal, industrious, and orderly ("God helps those who help themselves," "Never leave till tomorrow that which you can do to-day," "You cannot pluck roses without fear of thorns, nor enjoy a fair wife without danger of horns.")

Dec 23rd – Richard Arkwright, English inventor, was born (d. 1792).

Famine struck Western Japan as crops were ruined by an excess of rain and a plague of grasshoppers: 2.6 million went hungry and 12,400 died.


This one was built in 1786


During 1786 the following happened -

May 1 – Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro premieres in Vienna.

May 21 – France's diamond necklace affair ends in the acquittal of Cardinal de Rohan. The comte de La Motte is believed to have escaped to London with the necklace and is condemned in his ab-sence to serve in the galleys for life. The comtesse de La Motte is condemned to be whipped, branded, and locked up in the Salpetrière. Cardinal de Rohan is exiled in disgrace to the abbey of la Chaise-Dieu; Marie Antoinette is disappointed by his acquittal.

Jun 8th - Commercially made ice cream 1st advertised (Mr Hall, NYC)

June 10 – An earthquake-caused landslide dam on the Dadu River gives way, killing 100,000 in the Sichuan province of China.

August 1 – Caroline Herschel discovers a comet (the first discovered by a woman).

August 8 – Mont Blanc is climbed for the first time by Dr. Michael-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat.

August 17- David "Davy" Crockett, American frontiersman, was born (d. 1836)

August 17- Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Mother of Queen Victoria, was born (d. 1861)

August 17- Prussia's Friedrich II (the Great) dies at his Sans-Souci Palace in Potsdam at age 72 af-ter a 46-year reign.

September 2 – A hurricane strikes Barbados.

Dec 29th - French Revolution: The Assembly of Notables is convoked

Goethe undertakes his Italian Journey (published in 1817).

Native Americans hold a council at which the Seneca chief Sagoyewatha (né Otetiani), now 28, ar-gues the inevitability of making peace with the new United States

Russia's Catherine the Great begins a second war with the Ottoman Empire

The first ship leaves Britain for Botany Bay, Australia: 820 out of 1,138 aboard are convicts.

Millwright Andrew Meikle develops the first successful threshing machine

If you would like to see what historic features other members of the gang have found please click on this FMTSO link.





21 comments:

  1. A fascinating post as always. I was quite surprised by how recent some events appeared and how long ago others seemed relative to the dates of actual happening. I forget that when I first became aware of some of the events mentioned I was probably at least half a century younger. Scary.

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  2. A wonderful post...
    I love our local history and will now have to make a visit to see these in person.
    The Isle of Lewis... so jealous.
    The son of Glaswegian parents Scotland has been visited so often. I've been all around the coast love visting Ullapool and have walked miles to see Sandwood Bay (one of the best beaches on the planet) I've been on Skye, Arran, Bute and Mull but have never managed a trip to Lewis... hopefully one day?

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  3. as I was doing the post, I was thinking, I am very sexist to say that the boys will enjoy doing this. I come over, and and pleased you proved me wrong.

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  4. SS! I loved this! I can't help but imagine what it must be like to live in that house! Is it still liveable, or is it just historical? (not that there's anything wrong with that...)
    Great post!

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  5. Great post! I like the old town plan. Above where it says 1850 there is a parcel of land called The Mistake!

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  6. I was thinking about how young NZ is compared to other parts of the world when composing my post. Did you mean your first cottage was built in 1732? The first whalers did not appear here until 1792! You have illustrated my point perfectly. Great post!

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  7. Fascinating history and I love those gorgeous cottages!

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  8. Fascinating indeed!
    Maybe you want to correct the line about the first cottage where you say that it was built in 1832.

    I didn't know that commercially made ice-cream goes back as far as 1786!

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  9. Great job done by author. Information helps me a lot to improve my skills. Thanks for the author for sharing. Please keep posting.

    Hurricane

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  10. I love the timeline. put all into perspective. love the houses.

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  11. Thanks for noting I made an error on the date - it was built in 1732.

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  12. I agree with Hurricane, writers such as yourself have taught me so much about how to publish a good post. I am an avid reader and many of the events mentioned in your post I have read about in novels and biographies. My favorite type of reading is a novel based on actual historical periods and historical persons woven into the story. I really enjoyed this post.
    QMM

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  13. Thanks Peggy for your genuine appreciation. My favouriote reading is also historical novels where I can immerse myself in a good story asnd learn a lot at the same time.

    I suspect Hurricane is paid to leave a similar comment on a large number of blogs in the hope they will go to the hydroponics website - i.e it's spam but I've left it on to show people how the spammers work.

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  14. Thanks, Scriptor, this is a wonderful post! It's good to be reminded that life has always been busy -- and in some cases, fraught with peril. These are not modern problems. I was particularly interested to note that earthquakes and weather disasters were causing havoc 250 years ago, just as they are today.

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  15. I'm always struck by the depth of written hostory about the British Isles. Europeans began settling my town aeound the year 1800.

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  16. A very interesting post and such wonderful photos. Wishing you a nice weekend. Mildred/Maple Lane

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  17. Very informative and interesting post. Thanks for sharing.

    FMTSO

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  18. Fascinating post, as usual. George Washington was a baby...yes...one of my favorite things about Great Britain is that it reminds me how young the United States is. I think the U.S. is now a teenager. At least it acts like it. Or maybe it acts like the Terrible Twos. Also appreciate the old map -- I think I will go on Google Earth and see if I can line it up with current satellite views...maybe see the roof of the house in your picture.

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  19. I can't remember if I already put in a comment or not! Looking again at these charming old cottages I'm struck by the irregularities in the architecture, like how some of the doors/windows/chimneys etc are placed. Makes me wonder if the houses have been added to and changes made over the centuries. Or if they hadn't quite made up their mind before they started...

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  20. Fascinating. I am into genealogy and that teaches me a lot about history too.

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  21. Interesting and rather different cottages.

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