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Reza Shah

Reza Shah Pahlavi (15 March 1878 – 26 July 1944) was an Iranian military officer and the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. As a politician, he previously served as minister of war and prime minister of Qajar Iran and subsequently reigned as Shah of Pahlavi Iran from 1925 until he was forced to abdicate after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Mohammad Reza Shah. A modernizer, Reza Shah clashed with the Shia clergy, but also introduced many social, economic, and political reforms during his reign, ultimately laying the foundation of the modern Iranian State. Therefore, he is regarded by many as the founder of modern Iran.

At the age of 14 he joined the Persian Cossack Brigade, and also served in the army. In 1911, he was promoted to first lieutenant, by 1912 he was elevated to the rank of captain and by 1915 he became a colonel. In February 1921, as leader of the entire Cossack Brigade based in Qazvin province, he marched towards Tehran and seized the capital. He forced the dissolution of the government and installed Zia ol Din Tabatabaee as the new prime minister. Reza Khan's first role in the new government was commander-in-chief of the army and the minister of war.

Two years after the coup, Seyyed Zia appointed Reza Pahlavi as Iran's prime minister, backed by the compliant national assembly of Iran. In 1925, Reza Pahlavi was appointed as the legal monarch of Iran by the decision of Iran's constituent assembly. The assembly deposed Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar dynasty, and amended Iran's 1906 constitution to allow selection of Reza Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran. He founded the Pahlavi dynasty that lasted until overthrown in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution.

In the spring of 1950, he was posthumously named as Reza Shah the Great (رضا شاه بزرگ) by Iran's National Consultative Assembly.

His legacy remains controversial to this day. His defenders say that he was an essential reunifying and modernizing force for Iran, while his detractors (particularly the Islamic Republic of Iran) assert that his reign was often despotic, with his failure to modernize Iran's large peasant population eventually sowing the seeds for the Iranian Revolution nearly four decades later, which ended 2,500 years of Iranian monarchy. Moreover, his insistence on ethnic nationalism and cultural unitarism, along with forced detribalization and sedentarization, resulted in the suppression of several ethnic and social groups. Although he was of Iranian Mazanderani descent,   his government carried out an extensive policy of Persianization trying to create a single, united and largely homogeneous nation, similar to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's policy of Turkification in Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Early life

Reza Shah Pahlavi was born in the town of Alasht in Savadkuh County, Mazandaran province, in 1878, to son of Major Abbas-Ali Khan and wife Noush-Afarin. His mother, Nush Afarin Ayromlu, was an immigrant from Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), whose family had emigrated to Qajar Iran when it was forced to cede all of its territories in the Caucasus following the Russo-Persian Wars several decades prior to Reza Shah's birth. His father was a Mazanderani,  commissioned in the 7th Savadkuh Regiment, and served in the Second Herat War of 1856. Abbas-Ali died suddenly on 26 November 1878, when Reza was barely 8 months old. Upon his father's death, Reza and his mother moved to her brother's house in Tehran. She remarried in 1879 and left Reza to the care of his uncle. In 1882, his uncle in turn sent Reza to a family friend, Amir Tuman Kazim Khan, an officer in the Persian Cossack Brigade, in whose home he had a room of his own and a chance to study with Kazim Khan's children with the tutors who came to the house. When Reza was sixteen years old, he joined the Persian Cossack Brigade. In 1903, when he was 25 years old, he is reported to have been guard and servant to the Dutch consul general Fridolin Marinus Knobel. Maurits Wagenvoort, who met and spoke to Reza at a meeting of the "Babi-circle of Hadsji Achont" in Tehran in 1903, in a publication from 1926 speaks of him as the "gholam of His Presence the Dutch Consul" and noted his very keen interest in Western politics.

He also served in the Imperial Army. His initial career started as a private under Qajar Prince Abdol-Hossein Farman Farma's command. Farman Farma noted that Reza had potential and sent him to military school where he gained the rank of gunnery sergeant. In 1911, he gave a good account of himself in later campaigns and was promoted to First Lieutenant. His proficiency in handling machine guns elevated him to the rank equivalent to captain in 1912. By 1915, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. His record of military service eventually led him to a commission as a brigadier general in the Persian Cossack Brigade.

In November 1919, he chose the last name Pahlavi, which later became the name of the dynasty he founded.

1921 coup
In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Persia had become a battleground. In 1917, Britain used Iran as the springboard to launch an expedition into Russia as part of their intervention in the Russian Civil War on the side of the White movement. The Soviet Union responded by annexing portions of northern Persia, creating the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic. The Soviets extracted ever more humiliating concessions from the Qajar government, whose ministers Ahmad Shah was often unable to control. By 1920, the government had lost virtually all power outside its capital: British and Soviet forces exercised control over most of the Iranian mainland.

In late 1920, the Soviets in Rasht prepared to march on Tehran with "a guerrilla force of 1,500 Jangalis, Kurds, Armenians, and Azerbaijanis", reinforced by the Soviet Red Army. This, along with various other unrest in the country, created "an acute political crisis in the capital."

On 14 January 1921, the commander of the British Forces in Iran, General Edmund "Tiny" Ironside, promoted Reza Khan, who had been leading the Tabriz battalion, to lead the entire brigade. About a month later, under British direction, Reza Khan led his 3,000-4,000 strong detachment of the Cossack Brigade, based in Niyarak, Qazvin, and Hamadan, to Tehran and seized the capital. He forced the dissolution of the previous government and demanded that Zia ol Din Tabatabaee be appointed Prime Minister. Reza Khan's first role in the new government was as commander of the Iranian Army, which he combined with the post of Minister of War. He took the title Sardar Sepah, or Commander-in-Chief of the Army, by which he was known until he became Shah. While Reza Khan and his Cossack brigade secured Tehran, the Persian envoy in Moscow negotiated a treaty with the Bolsheviks for the removal of Soviet troops from Persia. Article IV of the Russo-Persian Treaty of Friendship allowed the Soviets to invade and occupy Persia, should they believe foreign troops were using it as a staging area for an invasion of Soviet territory.

The coup d'état of 1921 was partially assisted by the British government, which wished to halt the Bolsheviks' penetration of Iran, particularly because of the threat it posed to the British Raj. It is thought that the British provided "ammunition, supplies and pay" for Reza's troops. On 8 June 1932, a British Embassy report states that the British were interested in helping Reza Shah create a centralizing power. General Ironside gave a situation report to the British War Office saying that a capable Persian officer was in command of the Cossacks and this "would solve many difficulties and enable us to depart in peace and honour".

Reza Khan spent the rest of 1921 securing Iran's interior, responding to a number of revolts that erupted against the new government. Among the greatest threats to the new administration were the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic, which had been established in Gilan, and the Kurds of Khorasan.

Overthrow of the Qajar dynasty
From the beginning of the appointment of Reza Khan as the minister of war, there was ever increasing tension with Zia ol Din Tabatabaee, who was prime minister at the time. Zia ol Din Tabatabaee wrongly calculated that when Reza Khan was appointed as the minister of war, he would relinquish his post as the head of the Persian Cossack Brigade, and that Reza Khan would wear civilian clothing instead of the military attire. This erroneous calculation by Zia ol Din Tabatabaee backfired and instead it was apparent to people who observed Reza Khan, including members of parliament, that he (and not Zia ol Din Tabatabaee) was the one who wielded power.

By 1923, Reza Khan had largely succeeded in securing Iran's interior from any remaining domestic and foreign threats. Upon his return to the capital he was appointed Prime Minister, which prompted Ahmad Shah to leave Iran for Europe, where he would remain (at first voluntarily, and later in exile) until his death. It induced the Parliament to grant Reza Khan dictatorial powers, who in turn assumed the symbolic and honorific styles of Janab-i-Ashraf (His Serene Highness) and Hazrat-i-Ashraf on 28 October 1923. He quickly established a political cabinet in Tehran to help organize his plans for modernization and reform.

By October 1925, he succeeded in pressuring the Majlis to depose and formally exile Ahmad Shah, and instate him as the next Shah of Iran. Initially, he had planned to declare the country a republic, as his contemporary Atatürk had done in Turkey, but abandoned the idea in the face of British and clerical opposition.

The Majlis, convening as a constituent assembly, declared him the Shah (King) of Iran on 12 December 1925, pursuant to the Persian Constitution of 1906. Three days later, on 15 December, he took his imperial oath and thus became the first shah of the Pahlavi dynasty. Reza Shah's coronation took place much later, on 25 April 1926. It was at that time that his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was proclaimed crown prince.

Rule as the Shah
While the Shah left behind no major thesis, or speeches giving an overarching policy, his reforms indicated a striving for an Iran which—according to scholar Ervand Abrahamian—would be "free of clerical influence, nomadic uprisings, and ethnic differences", on the one hand, and on the other hand would contain "European-style educational institutions, Westernized women active outside the home, and modern economic structures with state factories, communication networks, investment banks, and department stores." Reza is said to have avoided political participation and consultation with politicians or political personalities, instead embracing the slogan "every country has its own ruling system and ours is a one man system." He is also said to have preferred punishment to reward in dealing with subordinates or citizens.

Reza Shah's reign has been said to have consisted of "two distinct periods". From 1925 to 1933, figures such as Abdolhossein Teymourtash, Nosrat ol Dowleh Firouz, and Ali-Akbar Davar and many other western-educated Iranians emerged to implement modernist plans, such as the construction of railways, a modern judiciary and educational system, and the imposition of changes in traditional attire, and traditional and religious customs and mores. In the second half of his reign (1933–41), which the Shah described as "one-man rule", strong personalities like Davar and Teymourtash were removed, and secularist and Western policies and plans initiated earlier were implemented.

Modernization

During Reza Shah's sixteen years of rule, major developments, such as large road construction projects and the Trans-Iranian Railway were built, modern education was introduced and the University of Tehran, the first Iranian university, was established. The number of modern industrial plants increased 17-fold under Reza Shah (excluding oil installations), and the number of miles of highway increased from 2,000 to 14,000. He founded 100,000-man army (previously, the shah had relied on tribal forces who were rewarded with plunder from the enemy), 90,000-man civil service. He set up free, compulsory education for both males and females and shut down private religious schools—Islamic, Christian, Jewish, etc. He confiscated land and real estate from the wealthy shrine endowments at Mashhad and Qom, etc. In Mashhad, the revenues of the sanctuary of Imam Reza helped finance secular education, build a modern hospital, improve the water supply of the city, and underwrite industrial enterprises."

In 1923, Reza Khan, then Sardar Sepah (Commander in Chief), visited Susa, the main site of French excavation in Iran. Enraged by the sight of a large European castle with a French flag, he remarked, "Did they intend to position an army there up on the hill?" He also received multiple reports of French looting of Susa's antiquities and taking them to France. When Reza Khan ascended the throne in 1925, his court minister, Teymourtash, suggested ending the French monopoly on excavation granted by Qajar government and appointing a Frenchman as the director of a new archaeological institute. Consequently, the French monopoly was abolished in 1927, and as a compromise, André Godard was appointed director of the archaeological service. The Iranian Parliament voted on April 29, 1928, to hire Godard for five years starting from November 18, 1928. Reza Shah preferred Iranian architects. When his favorite daughter, Princess Shams, wanted a garden, she chose a design by French architect André Godard. However, the shah's approval was required for construction within the royal compound. Upon seeing a Latin name on the plans, Reza Shah became visibly angry. Despite assurances that Godard had lived in Iran long enough to be considered virtually Iranian, the shah tore up the plans and insisted that an Iranian architect design the garden.

Along with the modernization of the nation, Reza Shah was the ruler during the time of the Women's Awakening (1936–1941). This movement sought the elimination of the chador from Iranian working society. Supporters held that the veil impeded physical exercise and the ability of women to enter society and contribute to the progress of the nation. This move met opposition from the Mullahs from the religious establishment. The unveiling issue and the Women's Awakening are linked to the Marriage Law of 1931 and the Second Congress of Eastern Women in Tehran in 1932.

Reza Shah was the first Iranian Monarch in 1400 years who paid respect to the Jews by praying in the synagogue when visiting the Jewish community of Isfahan; an act that boosted the self-esteem of the Iranian Jews and made Reza Shah their second most respected Iranian leader after Cyrus the Great. Reza Shah's reforms opened new occupations to Jews and allowed them to leave the ghetto. Contradicting this are claims that he was behind anti-Jewish incidents in parts of Tehran during September 1922.

He forbade photographing aspects of Iran he considered backwards such as camels, and he banned clerical dress and chadors in favor of Western dress.

Parliament and ministers
Parliamentary elections during the Shah's reign were not democratic. The general practice was to "draw up, with the help of the police chief, a list of parliamentary candidates for the interior minister. The interior minister then passed the same names onto the provincial governor-general. ... [who] handed down the list to the supervisory electoral councils that were packed by the Interior Ministry to oversee the ballots. Parliament ceased to be a meaningful institution, and instead became a decorative garb covering the nakedness of military rule."

Reza Shah discredited and eliminated a number of his ministers. His minister of Imperial Court, Abdolhossein Teymourtash, was accused and convicted of corruption, bribery, misuse of foreign currency regulations, and plans to overthrow the Shah. He was removed as the minister of court in 1932 and died under suspicious circumstances while in prison in September 1933. The minister of finance, Prince Firouz Nosrat-ed-Dowleh III, who played an important role in the first three years of his reign, was convicted on similar charges in May 1930, and also died in prison, in January 1938. Ali-Akbar Davar, his minister of justice, was suspected of similar charges and committed suicide in February 1937. The elimination of these ministers "deprived" Iran "of her most dynamic figures ... and the burden of government fell heavily on Reza Shah" according to historian Cyrus Ghani.

Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Hekmat funded the construction of key cultural and educational sites in Iran, including the University of Tehran, the Ancient Iran Museum (later the Iran National Museum), and the tombs of Ferdowsi, Hafez, and Saadi. His account of building the university and the medical school’s first dissection hall reveals the cultural challenges faced during Iran's modernization. In a 1934 ministerial meeting, Hekmat pointed out that Tehran lacked a university. Reza Shah immediately tasked Hekmat with establishing one, allocating a budget of 250,000 Toman. Before, Shah had ordered ten students annually to study in Europe and the United States. Reza Shah advised against sending more students abroad, suggesting the establishment of a university in Tehran instead. From 1937, the University of Tehran admitted both men and women to study law, medicine, pharmacology, and literature.

Ali Asghar Hekmat enlisted Godard to design the University of Tehran, using the 200,000-square-meter Jalaliyah Garden for the project. In 1935, the Ebne Sina Medical School opened first, adorned with calligraphy from Nezami’s poems praising knowledge. Despite strong opposition from conservative clerics who opposed the dissection hall, efforts by figures like Hekmat ensured the school’s opening. Dr. Bakhtiar, a surgeon and deputy, had to discreetly visit hospitals, retrieve corpses, load them into his car, and transport them to the dissection hall.

Replacement of Persia with Iran
In the Western world, Persia (or its cognates) was historically the common name for Iran. In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates and League of Nations to use the term Iran ("Land of the Aryans"), the endonym of the country, used by its native people, in formal correspondence. Since then, in the Western World, the use of the word "Iran" has become more common. This also changed the usage of the names for the Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from Persian to Iranian. In 1959, the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza Shah Pahlavi's son and successor, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably, nonetheless use of "Iran" continued to supplant "Persia", especially in the West. Though the predominant and official language of the country was the Persian language, many did not consider themselves ethnic Persians, whereas "Iranians" made for a much more neutral and unifying reference to all the ethnic groups of Iran, further, "Persia" (locally known as Pars) was geographically confusing at times as it was also the name of one of Iran's significant cultural provinces. Although (internally) the country had been referred to as Iran throughout much of its history since the Sasanian Empire, many countries including the English-speaking world knew the country as Persia, largely a legacy of the Ancient Greeks name for the Achaemenid Empire.

Support and opposition
Support for the Shah came principally from three sources. The central "pillar" was the military, where the shah had begun his career. The annual defense budget of Iran "increased more than fivefold from 1926 to 1941." Officers were paid more than other salaried employees. The new modern and expanded state bureaucracy of Iran was another source of support. Its ten civilian ministries employed 90,000 full-time government workers. Patronage controlled by the Shah's royal court served as the third "pillar". This was financed by the Shah's considerable personal wealth which had been built up by forced sales and confiscations of estates, making him "the richest man in Iran". On his abdication Reza Shah "left to his heir a bank account of some three million pounds sterling and estates totaling over 3 million acres."

Although the landed aristocracy lost most of their influence during Reza Shah's reign, his regime aroused opposition not from them or the gentry but from Iran's: "tribes, the clergy, and the young generation of the new intelligentsia. The tribes bore the brunt of the new order." Among the tribes forcibly settled where the Bakhtiari, Qashqai, Lur, Kurd, Baluchi. According to Sandra Mackey, the settling "shattered tribal economic and undermined the traditional social structure. ... people and herds, ill adapted to a sedentary lifestyle and dependent for hygiene and health on moving campsites from time to time, died in terrible numbers. None have forgotten."

Clash with the clergy
As his reign became more secure, Reza Shah clashed with Iran's clergy and devout Muslims on many issues. In March 1928, he violated the sanctuary of Qom's Fatima Masumeh Shrine to beat a cleric who had angrily admonished Reza Shah's wife for temporarily exposing her face a day earlier while on pilgrimage to Qom. In December of that year he instituted a law requiring everyone (except Shia jurisconsults who had passed a special qualifying examination) to wear Western clothes. This angered devout Muslims because it included a hat with a brim which prevented the devout from touching their foreheads on the ground during salat as required by Islamic law. The Shah also encouraged women to discard hijab. He announced that female teachers could no longer come to school with head coverings. One of his daughters reviewed a girls' athletic event with an uncovered head. Reza Shah confiscated some religious madrasas from clerics. Esmail Meraat, the Minister of Culture, converted the Marvi Madrasa into a new art college (Honar Kadeh) in Tehran, where Andre Godard and Maxime Siroux were among the teachers. However, the second Pahlavi king, Mohammad Reza Shah, later relocated the art college to the basement of the faculty of engineering at the University of Tehran, returning the madrasa to the clerics.

The devout were also angered by policies that allowed mixing of the sexes. Women were allowed to study in the colleges of law and medicine, and in 1934 a law set heavy fines for cinemas, restaurant, and hotels that did not open their doors to both sexes. Doctors were permitted to dissect human bodies, in defiance of the Quranic ban on necropsy (the Shah even forced his cabinet members to "accompany him to the university's pathology lab to view two cadavers in a vat") He restricted public mourning observances to one day, banned self-flagellation during Ashura, and required mosques to use chairs instead of the traditional sitting on the floors of mosques. By the mid-1930s, Reza Shah's rule had caused intense dissatisfaction of the Shia clergy throughout Iran. In 1935, a rebellion erupted in the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad. Responding to a cleric who denounced the Shah's "heretical" innovations, corruption and heavy consumer taxes, many bazaaris and villagers took refuge in the shrine, chanting slogans such as "The Shah is a new Yezid." For four full days local police and army refused to violate the shrine. The standoff was ended when troops from Iranian Azerbaijan arrived and broke into the shrine, killing dozens and injuring hundreds, and marking a final rupture between the clergy and the Shah. Some of the Mashed clergy even left their jobs, such as the Keeper of the Keys of the shrine Hassan Mazloumi, later named Barjesteh, who stated he did not want to listen to the orders of a dog. From 1925 to 1941 enrollment of "theology students in the traditional madresehs"—roughly the equivalent in age level of secondary schools—declined from 5984 to 785.

The Shah intensified his controversial changes following the incident with the Kashf-e hijab decree, banning the chador and ordering all citizens, rich and poor, to bring their wives to public functions without head coverings.

Foreign affairs and influence

Reza Shah initiated change in foreign affairs as well. He worked to balance British influence with other foreigners and generally to diminish foreign influence in Iran.

One of the first acts of the new government after the 1921 entrance into Tehran was to tear up the treaty with the Soviet Union.

In 1934 he made an official state visit to Turkey and met Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. During their meeting Reza Shah spoke in Azerbaijani, and Atatürk in Turkish.

In 1931, he refused to allow Imperial Airways to fly in Persian airspace, instead giving the concession to German-owned Lufthansa Airlines. The next year, 1932, he surprised the British by unilaterally canceling the oil concession awarded to William Knox D'Arcy (and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company), which was slated to expire in 1961. The concession granted Persia 16% of the net profits from APOC oil operations. The Shah wanted 21%. The British took the dispute before the League of Nations. However, before a decision was made by the League, the company and Iran compromised and a new concession was signed on 26 April 1933.

He previously hired American consultants to develop and implement Western-style financial and administrative systems. Among them was U.S. economist Arthur Millspaugh, who acted as the nation's finance minister. Reza Shah also purchased ships from Italy and hired Italians to teach his troops the intricacies of naval warfare. He also imported hundreds of German technicians and advisors for various projects. Mindful of Persia's long period of subservience to British and Russian authority, Reza Shah was careful to avoid giving any one foreign nation too much control. He also insisted that foreign advisors be employed by the Persian government, so that they would not be answerable to foreign powers. This was based upon his experience with Anglo-Persian, which was owned and operated by the British government.

In his campaign against foreign influence, he annulled the 19th-century capitulations to Europeans in 1928. Under these, Europeans in Iran had enjoyed the privilege of being subject to their own consular courts rather than to the Iranian judiciary. The right to print money was moved from the British Imperial Bank to his National Bank of Iran (Bank-i Melli Iran), as was the administration of the telegraph system, from the Indo-European Telegraph Company to the Iranian government, in addition to the collection of customs by Belgian officials. He eventually fired Millspaugh, and prohibited foreigners from administering schools, owning land or traveling in the provinces without police permission.

Not all observers agree that the Shah minimized foreign influence. Reza Shah built a 1392 km-long rail line connecting the Persian Gulf with the Caspian Sea, using foreign technicians from countries with no historic interest in Iran—principally Germany, Scandinavia, and the United States—and not using foreign loans.

However, according to Makki Hossein, this north–south railway line was uneconomical, only serving the British, who had a military presence in the south of Iran and desired the ability to transfer their troops north to Russia, as part of their strategic defence plan. Instead, the Shah's government should have developed what critics believe was an economically justifiable east–west railway system. (However, in the decades that followed and continuing into the present, north-south transit is considered far more economically vital in comparison to west–east transit.)

On 21 March 1935, he issued a decree asking foreign delegates to use the term Iran in formal correspondence, as Persia is a term used for a country identified as Iran in the Persian language. It was, however, attributed more to the Iranian people than others, as Iran means "Land of the Aryans". This wisdom of this decision continues to be debated.

Tired of the opportunistic policies of both Britain and the Soviet Union, the Shah circumscribed contacts with foreign embassies. Relations with the Soviet Union had already deteriorated because of that country's commercial policies, which in the 1920s and 1930s adversely affected Iran. In 1932, the Shah offended Britain by canceling the agreement under which the Anglo-Persian Oil Company produced and exported Iran's oil. Although a new and improved agreement was eventually signed, it did not satisfy Iran's demands and left bad feeling on both sides.

To counterbalance British and Soviet influence, Reza Shah encouraged German commercial enterprise in Iran. On the eve of World War II, Germany was Iran's largest trading partner. The Germans agreed to sell the Shah the steel factory he coveted and considered a sine qua non of progress and modernity. Reza Shah's foreign policy, which had consisted largely on playing the Soviet Union off against the United Kingdom, failed when the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, resulted in those two powers becoming sudden allies in the fight against the Axis powers. Seeking to guarantee the continued supply for to United Kingdom and in order to secure a route of supply to provide Soviet forces with war material, the two allies jointly launched a surprise invasion in August 1941. Caught off guard, out gunned and diplomatically isolated, Reza Shah decided not to the resist the Anglo-Soviet invasion, ordering his forces to surrender before agreeing to abdicate the throne in favor of his son. Reza Shah then went into exile while Iran would remain under Allied occupation until 1946.

Later years of reign

The Shah's reign is sometimes divided into periods. All the efforts of Reza Shah's reign were either completed or conceived in the 1925–1938 period. Abdolhossein Teymourtash assisted by Farman Farma, Ali-Akbar Davar and a large number of modern educated Iranians, proved adept at masterminding the implementation of many reforms demanded since the failed constitutional revolution of 1905–1911. The preservation and promotion of the country's historic heritage, the provision of public education, construction of a national railway, abolition of capitulation agreements, and the establishment of a national bank had all been advocated by intellectuals since the tumult of the constitutional revolution.

The later years of his reign were dedicated to institutionalizing the educational system of Iran and also to the industrialization of the country. He knew that the system of the constitutional monarchy in Iran after him had to stand on a solid basis of the collective participation of all Iranians, and that it was indispensable to create educational centers all over Iran.

Reza Shah attempted to forge a regional alliance with Iran's Middle Eastern neighbors, particularly Turkey. The death of Ataturk in 1938, followed by the start of World War II shortly thereafter, prevented these projects from being realized.

The parliament assented to his decrees, the free press was suppressed, and the swift incarceration of political leaders like Mossadegh, the murder of others such as Teymourtash, Sardar Asad, Firouz, Modarres, Arbab Keikhosro and the suicide of Davar, ensured that any progress towards democratization was stillborn and organized opposition to the Shah, impossible. Reza Shah treated the urban middle class, the managers, and technocrats with an iron fist; as a result his state-owned industries remained underproductive and inefficient. The bureaucracy fell apart, since officials preferred sycophancy, when anyone could be whisked away to prison for even the whiff of disobeying his whims. He confiscated land from the Qajars and from his rivals and into his own estates. The corruption continued under his rule and even became institutionalized. Progress toward modernization was spotty and isolated as it could only take place with Shah's approval. Eventually the Shah became totally dependent on the military and secret police to retain power; in return, these state organs regularly received funding up to 50 percent of available public revenue to ensure their loyalty.

World War II and forced abdication
In August 1941 the Allied powers (United Kingdom and the Soviet Union) invaded and occupied neutral Iran by a massive air, land, and naval assault without a declaration of war. By 28–29 August, the Iranian military situation was in complete chaos. The Allies had complete control over the skies of Iran, and large sections of the country were in their hands. Major Iranian cities (such as Tehran) were suffering repeated air raids. In Tehran itself, the casualties had been light, but the Soviet Air Force dropped leaflets over city, warning the population of an upcoming massive bombing raid and urging them to surrender before they suffered imminent destruction. Tehran's water and food supply had faced shortages, and soldiers fled in fear of the Soviets killing them upon capture. Faced with total collapse, the royal family (except the Shah and the Crown Prince) fled to Isfahan.

The collapse of the army that Reza Shah had spent so much time and effort creating was humiliating. Many Iranian commanders behaved incompetently, others secretly sympathized with the British and sabotaged Iranian resistance. The army generals met in secret to discuss surrender options. When the Shah learned of the generals' actions, he beat armed forces chief General Ahmad Nakhjavan with a cane and physically stripped him of his rank. Nakhjavan was nearly shot by the Shah on the spot, but at the insistence of the Crown Prince, he was sent to prison instead.

The Shah ordered pro-British Prime Minister Ali Mansur, whom he blamed for demoralising the military, to resign, replacing him with former prime minister Mohammad Ali Foroughi.

Within days, Reza Shah ordered the military to cease resistance and entered into negotiations with the British and Soviets. Foroughi was disobliged towards Reza Shah, having been previously forced into retirement years earlier for political reasons with his daughter's father in-law being executed by firing squad. When he entered into negotiations with the British, instead of negotiating a favorable settlement, Foroughi implied that both he and the Iranian people wanted to be "liberated" from the Shah's rule. The British and Foroughi agreed that for the Allies to withdraw, Iran would have to expel the German minister and his staff should leave Tehran; the German, Italian, Hungarian and Romanian legations would be closed; and all remaining German nationals (including all families) would be handed over to the British and Soviet authorities. The last order would mean almost certain imprisonment or, in the case of those handed to the Soviets, possible death. Reza Shah stalled on the last demand, choosing instead to secretly evacuate German nationals from the country. By 18 September, most of the German nationals had escaped via the Turkish border.

In response to the Shah's defiance, the Red Army on 16 September moved to occupy Tehran. Fearing execution by the Communists, many people (especially the wealthy) fled the city. Reza Shah, in a letter handwritten by Foroughi, announced his abdication, as the Soviets entered the city on 17 September. The British wanted to restore the Qajar dynasty to power, but the heir to Ahmad Shah Qajar since that last Qajar Shah's death in 1930, Hamid Hassan Mirza, was a British subject who spoke no Persian. Instead (with the help of Foroughi), Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took the oath to become the Shah of Iran.

The British left the Shah a face-saving way out:

Would His Highness kindly abdicate in favour of his son, the heir to the throne? We have a high opinion of him and will ensure his position. But His Highness should not think there is any other solution.

The Anglo-Soviet invasion was instigated in response to Reza for having denied the request to remove the German residents, who could threaten the Abadan refinery. Reza Shah further refused the Allies' requests to expel German nationals residing in Iran and denied the use of the railway to the Allies. However, according to the British embassy reports from Tehran in 1940, the total number of German citizens in Iran from technicians to spies was no more than one thousand. Because of its strategic importance to the Allies, Iran was subsequently called "The Bridge of Victory" by Winston Churchill. Reza Shah was forced by the invading British to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who replaced his father as Shah on the throne on 16 September 1941.

Critics and defenders
Reza Shah's main critics were the so-called "new intelligentsia", often educated in Europe, for whom the Shah "was not a state-builder but an 'oriental despot' ... not a reformer but a plutocrat strengthening the landed upper class; not a real nationalist but a jack-booted Cossack trained by the Tsarists and brought to power by British imperialists." His defenders included Ahmad Kasravi, a contemporary intellectual and historian of constitutional movement, who had strongly criticized participation of Reza Shah in the 1909 siege of Tabriz. When he accepted the unpleasant responsibility of acting as defense attorney for a group of officers accused of torturing political prisoners, he stated; "Our young intellectuals cannot possibly understand and cannot judge the reign of Reza Shah. They cannot because they were too young to remember the chaotic and desperate conditions out of which arose the autocrat named Reza Shah."

Clarmont Skrine, a British civil servant who accompanied Reza Shah on his 1941 journey to British Mauritius, writes in his book, World War in Iran: "Reza Shah Pahlavi, posthumously entitled 'The Great' in the annals of his country was indeed, if not the greatest, at any rate one of the strongest and ablest men Iran has produced in all the two and a half milleniums of her history".

Death

Like his son after him, Reza Shah died in exile. After the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Iran on 25 August 1941, the British offered to keep his family in power if Reza Shah agreed to a life of exile. Reza Shah abdicated and the British forces quickly took him and his children to Mauritius, where he lived at Château Val Ory on Bois-Cheri Road in the village of Moka. The Chateau Val Ory is still an Iranian property, albeit in a decrepitated state with the Iranian government refusing to sell it to the Mauritian government. Subsequently, he was sent to Durban and then to a house at 41 Young Avenue in the Parktown neighborhood of Johannesburg, South Africa, where he died on 26 July 1944 of a heart ailment about which he had been complaining for many years. His personal doctor had boosted the King's morale in exile by telling him that he was suffering from chronic indigestion and not heart ailment. He lived on a diet of plain rice and boiled chicken in the last years of his life. He was sixty-six years old at the time of his death.

After his death, his body was carried to Egypt, where it was embalmed and kept at the royal Al-Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo (also the future burial place of his son, the exiled Mohammad Reza Pahlavi). In May 1950, the remains were flown back to Iran where the embalming was removed, and buried in a mausoleum built in his honor in the town of Ray, in the southern suburbs of the capital, Tehran. The Iranian parliament (Majlis) later designated the title "the Great" to be added to his name. There were reports that on 14 January 1979, shortly before the Iranian Revolution, the remains were moved back to Egypt and buried in the Al-Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo. However, in a 2015 documentary From Tehran to Cairo, his daughter-in-law, Empress Farah, claimed that the remains of the late Reza Shah remain in the town of Ray.

After the 1979 revolution and during the period of the Interim Government of Iran, Iran faced a series of rampages at the hand of an extremist mob led by the cleric Sadeq Khalkhali. During this rampage, happening all over the nation, any construction depicting or even citing the name of the Shah and his family was destroyed. This included the destruction of Reza Shah's mausoleum, but they were unable to find his dead body.

In 2018, a mummified body believed to be Reza Shah's was found in the vicinity of his former mausoleum site in Tehran. An official said that the body belonged to Reza Shah and was buried in the same area.

Amendments and foundations
Under Reza Shah's reign, a number of new concepts were introduced between 1923 and 1941. Some of these significant changes, achievements, concepts and laws included:
 * Successful suppression of separatist movements and reunification of Iran under a powerful central government.
 * Foundation of the first judicial system of Iran.
 * Foundation of the first national health care system and public hospitals across the country.
 * Reestablishment of Iranian Gendarmerie and Shahrbani in order to enforce law and order.
 * Foundation of Trans-Iranian Railway which connected Caspian Sea to Persian Gulf.
 * Nationalizing Iranian forests and jungles.
 * Creation of an Iranian modern military.
 * Creation of Iran's first radio stations.
 * Founding of the national Museum of Iran.
 * Rebuilding Iran's historical sites, including the tombs of Ferdowsi and Hafez.
 * Organizing the Ferdowsi Millenary Celebrations to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of Ferdowsi's birth as the savior of Persian language and Iranian identity.
 * Creation of Iran's Academy of Persian Language and Literature in order to protect Iran's official language.
 * The first scientific excavations at Persepolis, the ancient capital of the Achaemenid Empire, were carried out by the initiative of Reza Shah. Ernst Herzfeld and Erich Schmidt representing the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago conducted excavations for eight seasons, beginning in 1930, and included other nearby sites.
 * Creation of the Iran's first national bank known as Bank Melli Iran (with German advice) and other Iranian banks such as Bank Sepah and Keshavarzi Bank.
 * Creation of the first university in Iran which is known as University of Tehran.
 * Transferring and providing full scholarships for the Iranian students to European countries for studying abroad.
 * Ordering all educational institutions in Iran to admit women.
 * Eradication of corruption in civil servants, paying wages in time so people did not have to rely on bribes.
 * Creation of the first national school system and schoolbooks in Iran; before Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Islamic madreseh and Quran was the only form of schooling available.
 * Establishment of the first Iranian kindergarten and school for deaf people.
 * Creation of the Iran Scout Organization.
 * Creation of birth certificates and Identification cards for all Iranians.
 * Creation of the first Iranian airplane factory with buying license from Junkers.
 * Building the first Iranian airport known as Mehrabad airport.
 * Changing Iranian currency from Toman to Rial.
 * Restoring Persian calendar and making it the official calendar of Iran.
 * Ordering all men other than ulama to wear Western clothes.
 * Kashf-e hijab (Unveiling). On 8 January 1936, Reza Shah issued a decree banning all veils (headscarf and chador), an edict that was swiftly and forcefully implemented.    The government also banned many types of male traditional clothing.
 * In the Western world, Persia (or one of its cognates) was historically the common name for Iran. In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran, the historical name of the country, used by its native people, in formal correspondence.
 * Reconstruction of old cities.
 * Abolition of slavery.
 * Abolition of harem.

Family and personal life
Reza Shah married, for the first time, Maryam Savadkoohi, who was his cousin, in 1895. The marriage lasted until Maryam's death in 1911, the couple had a daughter:

 * Princess Hamdam al-Saltaneh Pahlavi (1903–1992)

Reza Shah's second wife was Nimtaj Ayromlou, later Tadj ol-Molouk (1896–1982). The couple married in 1916 and when Reza Khan became king, Queen Tadj ol-Molouk was his official wife. They had four children together:

 * Princess Shams Pahlavi (1917–1996)
 * Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919–1980)
 * Princess Ashraf Pahlavi (1919–2016)
 * Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi (1922–1954).

The third wife of Reza Shah was Turan Amirsoleimani (1905–1994), who was from the Qajar dynasty. The couple married in 1922 but divorced in 1923 and together they had a son:

 * Prince Gholam Reza Pahlavi (1923–2017)

Reza Shah's fourth and last wife, Esmat Dowlatshahi (1905–1995), was a member of the Qajar dynasty. She married Reza Shah in 1923 and accompanied him to his exile. Esmat was Reza Shah's favorite wife, who resided at Marble Palace. The couple had five children:

 * Prince Abdul Reza Pahlavi (1924–2004)
 * Prince Ahmad Reza Pahlavi (1925–1981)
 * Prince Mahmoud Reza Pahlavi (1926–2001)
 * Princess Fatemeh Pahlavi (1928–1987)
 * Prince Hamid Reza Pahlavi (1932–1992).

List of prime ministers

 * Mohammad Ali Foroughi (1st Term) (1 November 1925 – 13 June 1926), was a close colleague / friend of Reza Shah (before he became king), was probably also Reza Shah's favorite prime minister.
 * Mostowfi ol-Mamalek (6th Term) (13 June 1926 – 2 June 1927)
 * Mehdi Qoli Hedayat (2 June 1927 – 18 September 1933)
 * Mohammad Ali Foroughi (2nd Term) (18 September 1933 – 3 December 1935)
 * Mahmoud Jam (3 December 1935 – 26 October 1939), Mahmoud Jam's son Fereydoun Jam marries Reza Shah's daughter, Princess Shams. 1937
 * Ahmad Matin-Daftari (26 October 1939 – 26 June 1940). Reza Shah removed him from office and imprisoned him in 1940 for spying on the UK and Winston Churchill on behalf of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.
 * Ali Mansur (26 June 1940 – 27 August 1941)

Titles, styles and honours
Following the overthrow of the Qajar dynasty and becoming the Shahanshah of Iran, he commanded all offices of Iran to address him with his surname and title, "Reza Shah Pahlavi". In the spring of 1950, after the foundation of the National Consultative Assembly, he was given the title "Reza Shah the Great".

Honours

 * Czechoslovakia: Collar 1st Class of the Order of the White Lion (1935)
 * Denmark: Knight of the Order of the Elephant (20 January 1937)
 * Sweden: Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim (10 November 1934)

title: Reza Shah


text:
Selectron tube

The Selectron was an early form of digital computer memory developed by Jan A. Rajchman and his group at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) under the direction of Vladimir K. Zworykin. It was a vacuum tube that stored digital data as electrostatic charges using technology similar to the Williams tube storage device. The team was never able to produce a commercially viable form of Selectron before magnetic-core memory became almost universal.

Development
Development of Selectron started in 1946 at the behest of John von Neumann of the Institute for Advanced Study, who was in the midst of designing the IAS machine and was looking for a new form of high-speed memory.

RCA's original design concept had a capacity of 4096 bits, with a planned production of 200 by the end of 1946. They found the device to be much more difficult to build than expected, and they were still not available by the middle of 1948. As development dragged on, the IAS machine was forced to switch to Williams tubes for storage, and the primary customer for Selectron disappeared. RCA lost interest in the design and assigned its engineers to improve televisions

A contract from the US Air Force led to a re-examination of the device in a 256-bit form. Rand Corporation took advantage of this project to switch their own IAS machine, the JOHNNIAC, to this new version of the Selectron, using 80 of them to provide 512 40-bit words of main memory. They signed a development contract with RCA to produce enough tubes for their machine at a projected cost of $500 per tube ($ in ).

Around this time IBM expressed an interest in the Selectron as well, but this did not lead to additional production. As a result, RCA assigned their engineers to color television development, and put the Selectron in the hands of "the mothers-in-law of two deserving employees (the Chairman of the Board and the President)."

Both the Selectron and the Williams tube were superseded in the market by the compact and cost-effective magnetic-core memory, in the early 1950s. The JOHNNIAC developers had decided to switch to core even before the first Selectron-based version had been completed.

Electrostatic storage
The Williams tube was an example of a general class of cathode-ray tube (CRT) devices known as storage tubes.

The primary function of a conventional CRT is to display an image by lighting phosphor using a beam of electrons fired at it from an electron gun at the back of the tube. The target point of the beam is steered around the front of the tube though the use of deflection magnets or electrostatic plates.

Storage tubes were based on CRTs, sometimes unmodified. They relied on two normally undesirable principles of phosphor used in the tubes. One was that when electrons from the CRT's electron gun struck the phosphor to light it, some of the electrons "stuck" to the tube and caused a localized static electric charge to build up. The second was that the phosphor, like many materials, also released new electrons when struck by an electron beam, a process known as secondary emission.

Secondary emission had the useful feature that the rate of electron release was significantly non-linear. When a voltage was applied that crossed a certain threshold, the rate of emission increased dramatically. This caused the lit spot to rapidly decay, which also caused any stuck electrons to be released as well. Visual systems used this process to erase the display, causing any stored pattern to rapidly fade. For computer uses it was the rapid release of the stuck charge that allowed it to be used for storage.

In the Williams tube, the electron gun at the back of an otherwise typical CRT is used to deposit a series of small patterns representing a 1 or 0 on the phosphor in a grid representing memory addresses. To read the display, the beam scanned the tube again, this time set to a voltage very close to that of the secondary emission threshold. The patterns were selected to bias the tube very slightly positive or negative. When the stored static electricity was added to the voltage of the beam, the total voltage either crossed the secondary emission threshold or didn't. If it crossed the threshold, a burst of electrons was released as the dot decayed. This burst was read capacitively on a metal plate placed just in front of the display side of the tube.

There were four general classes of storage tubes; the "surface redistribution type" represented by the Williams tube, the "barrier grid" system, which was unsuccessfully commercialized by RCA as the Radechon tube, the "sticking potential" type which was not used commercially, and the "holding beam" concept, of which the Selectron is a specific example.

Holding beam concept
In the most basic implementation, the holding beam tube uses three electron guns; one for writing, one for reading, and a third "holding gun" that maintains the pattern. The general operation is very similar to the Williams tube in concept. The main difference was the holding gun, which fired continually and unfocussed so it covered the entire storage area on the phosphor. This caused the phosphor to be continually charged to a selected voltage, somewhat below that of the secondary emission threshold.

Writing was accomplished by firing the writing gun at low voltage in a fashion similar to the Williams tube, adding a further voltage to the phosphor. Thus the storage pattern was the slight difference between two voltages stored on the tube, typically only a few tens of volts different. In comparison, the Williams tube used much higher voltages, producing a pattern that could only be stored for a short period before it decayed below readability.

Reading was accomplished by scanning the reading gun across the storage area. This gun was set to a voltage that would cross the secondary emission threshold for the entire display. If the scanned area held the holding gun potential a certain number of electrons would be released, if it held the writing gun potential the number would be higher. The electrons were read on a grid of fine wires placed behind the display, making the system entirely self-contained. In contrast, the Williams tube's read plate was in front of the tube, and required continual mechanical adjustment to work properly. The grid also had the advantage of breaking the display into individual spots without requiring the tight focus of the Williams system.

General operation was the same as the Williams system, but the holding concept had two major advantages. One was that it operated at much lower voltage differences and was thus able to safely store data for a longer period of time. The other was that the same deflection magnet drivers could be sent to several electron guns to produce a single larger device with no increase in complexity of the electronics.

Design
The Selectron further modified the basic holding gun concept through the use of individual metal eyelets that were used to store additional charge in a more predictable and long-lasting fashion.

Unlike a CRT where the electron gun is a single point source consisting of a filament and single charged accelerator, in the Selectron the "gun" is a plate and the accelerator is a grid of wires (thus borrowing some design notes from the barrier-grid tube). Switching circuits allow voltages to be applied to the wires to turn them on or off. When the gun fires through the eyelets, it is slightly defocussed. Some of the electrons strike the eyelet and deposit a charge on it.

The original 4096-bit Selectron was a 10 in by 3 in vacuum tube configured as 1024 by 4 bits. It had an indirectly heated cathode running up the middle, surrounded by two separate sets of wires — one radial, one axial — forming a cylindrical grid array, and finally a dielectric storage material coating on the inside of four segments of an enclosing metal cylinder, called the signal plates. The bits were stored as discrete regions of charge on the smooth surfaces of the signal plates.

The two sets of orthogonal grid wires were normally "biased" slightly positive, so that the electrons from the cathode were accelerated through the grid to reach the dielectric. The continuous flow of electrons allowed the stored charge to be continuously regenerated by the secondary emission of electrons. To select a bit to be read from or written to, all but two adjacent wires on each of the two grids were biased negative, allowing current to flow to the dielectric at one location only. In this respect, the Selectron works in the opposite sense of the Williams tube. In the Williams tube, the beam is continually scanning in a read/write cycle which is also used to regenerate data. In contrast, the Selectron is almost always regenerating the entire tube, only breaking this periodically to do actual reads and writes. This not only made operation faster due to the lack of required pauses but also meant the data was much more reliable as it was constantly refreshed.

Writing was accomplished by selecting a bit, as above, and then sending a pulse of potential, either positive or negative, to the signal plate. With a bit selected, electrons would be pulled onto (with a positive potential) or pushed from (negative potential) the dielectric. When the bias on the grid was dropped, the electrons were trapped on the dielectric as a spot of static electricity.

To read from the device, a bit location was selected and a pulse sent from the cathode. If the dielectric for that bit contained a charge, the electrons would be pushed off the dielectric and read as a brief pulse of current in the signal plate. No such pulse meant that the dielectric must not have held a charge.

The smaller capacity 256-bit (128 by 2 bits) "production" device was in a similar vacuum-tube envelope. It was built with two storage arrays of discrete "eyelets" on a rectangular plate, separated by a row of eight cathodes. The pin count was reduced from 44 for the 4096-bit device down to 31 pins and two coaxial signal output connectors. This version included visible green phosphors in each eyelet so that the bit status could also be read by eye.

Patents

 * Cylindrical 4096-bit Selectron
 * Planar 256-bit Selectron

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Selectron tube


text:
William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford (4 May 1845 – 3 March 1879) was a British mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his honour. The operations of geometric algebra have the effect of mirroring, rotating, translating, and mapping the geometric objects that are being modelled to new positions. Clifford algebras in general and geometric algebra in particular have been of ever increasing importance to mathematical physics, geometry, and computing. Clifford was the first to suggest that gravitation might be a manifestation of an underlying geometry. In his philosophical writings he coined the expression mind-stuff.

Biography
Born at Exeter, William Clifford showed great promise at school. He went on to King's College London (at age 15) and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected fellow in 1868, after being second wrangler in 1867 and second Smith's prizeman. Being second was a fate he shared with others who became famous scientists, including William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and James Clerk Maxwell. In 1870, he was part of an expedition to Italy to observe the solar eclipse of 22 December 1870. During that voyage he survived a shipwreck along the Sicilian coast.

In 1871, he was appointed professor of mathematics and mechanics at University College London, and in 1874 became a fellow of the Royal Society. He was also a member of the London Mathematical Society and the Metaphysical Society.

Clifford married Lucy Lane on 7 April 1875, with whom he had two children. Clifford enjoyed entertaining children and wrote a collection of fairy stories, The Little People.

Death and legacy
In 1876, Clifford suffered a breakdown, probably brought on by overwork. He taught and administered by day, and wrote by night. A half-year holiday in Algeria and Spain allowed him to resume his duties for 18 months, after which he collapsed again. He went to the island of Madeira to recover, but died there of tuberculosis after a few months, leaving a widow with two children.

Clifford and his wife are buried in London's Highgate Cemetery, near the graves of George Eliot and Herbert Spencer, just north of the grave of Karl Marx.

The academic journal Advances in Applied Clifford Algebras publishes on Clifford's legacy in kinematics and abstract algebra.

Mathematics
"'Clifford was above all and before all a geometer.'" The discovery of non-Euclidean geometry opened new possibilities in geometry in Clifford's era. The field of intrinsic differential geometry was born, with the concept of curvature broadly applied to space itself as well as to curved lines and surfaces. Clifford was very much impressed by Bernhard Riemann’s 1854 essay "On the hypotheses which lie at the bases of geometry". In 1870, he reported to the Cambridge Philosophical Society on the curved space concepts of Riemann, and included speculation on the bending of space by gravity. Clifford's translation of Riemann's paper was published in Nature in 1873. His report at Cambridge, "On the Space-Theory of Matter", was published in 1876, anticipating Albert Einstein's general relativity by 40 years. Clifford elaborated elliptic space geometry as a non-Euclidean metric space. Equidistant curves in elliptic space are now said to be Clifford parallels.

Clifford's contemporaries considered him acute and original, witty and warm. He often worked late into the night, which may have hastened his death. He published papers on a range of topics including algebraic forms and projective geometry and the textbook Elements of Dynamic. His application of graph theory to invariant theory was followed up by William Spottiswoode and Alfred Kempe.

Algebras
In 1878, Clifford published a seminal work, building on Grassmann's extensive algebra. He had succeeded in unifying the quaternions, developed by William Rowan Hamilton, with Grassmann's outer product (aka the exterior product). He understood the geometric nature of Grassmann's creation, and that the quaternions fit cleanly into the algebra Grassmann had developed. The versors in quaternions facilitate representation of rotation. Clifford laid the foundation for a geometric product, composed of the sum of the inner product and Grassmann's outer product. The geometric product was eventually formalized by the Hungarian mathematician Marcel Riesz. The inner product equips geometric algebra with a metric, fully incorporating distance and angle relationships for lines, planes, and volumes, while the outer product gives those planes and volumes vector-like properties, including a directional bias.

Combining the two brought the operation of division into play. This greatly expanded our qualitative understanding of how objects interact in space. Crucially, it also provided the means for quantitatively calculating the spatial consequences of those interactions. The resulting geometric algebra, as he called it, eventually realized the long sought goal of creating an algebra that mirrors the movements and projections of objects in 3-dimensional space.

Moreover, Clifford's algebraic schema extends to higher dimensions. The algebraic operations have the same symbolic form as they do in 2 or 3-dimensions. The importance of general Clifford algebras has grown over time, while their isomorphism classes - as real algebras - have been identified in other mathematical systems beyond simply the quaternions.

The realms of real analysis and complex analysis have been expanded through the algebra H of quaternions, thanks to its notion of a three-dimensional sphere embedded in a four-dimensional space. Quaternion versors, which inhabit this 3-sphere, provide a representation of the rotation group SO(3). Clifford noted that Hamilton's biquaternions were a tensor product $$H \otimes C$$ of known algebras, and proposed instead two other tensor products of H: Clifford argued that the "scalars" taken from the complex numbers C might instead be taken from split-complex numbers D or from the dual numbers N. In terms of tensor products, $$H \otimes D$$ produces split-biquaternions, while $$H \otimes N$$ forms dual quaternions. The algebra of dual quaternions is used to express screw displacement, a common mapping in kinematics.

Philosophy
As a philosopher, Clifford's name is chiefly associated with two phrases of his coining, mind-stuff and the tribal self. The former symbolizes his metaphysical conception, suggested to him by his reading of Baruch Spinoza, which Clifford (1878) defined as follows:

"That element of which, as we have seen, even the simplest feeling is a complex, I shall call Mind-stuff. A moving molecule of inorganic matter does not possess mind or consciousness; but it possesses a small piece of mind-stuff. When molecules are so combined together as to form the film on the under side of a jelly-fish, the elements of mind-stuff which go along with them are so combined as to form the faint beginnings of Sentience. When the molecules are so combined as to form the brain and nervous system of a vertebrate, the corresponding elements of mind-stuff are so combined as to form some kind of consciousness; that is to say, changes in the complex which take place at the same time get so linked together that the repetition of one implies the repetition of the other. When matter takes the complex form of a living human brain, the corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of a human consciousness, having intelligence and volition."

Regarding Clifford's concept, Sir Frederick Pollock wrote:

"Briefly put, the conception is that mind is the one ultimate reality; not mind as we know it in the complex forms of conscious feeling and thought, but the simpler elements out of which thought and feeling are built up. The hypothetical ultimate element of mind, or atom of mind-stuff, precisely corresponds to the hypothetical atom of matter, being the ultimate fact of which the material atom is the phenomenon. Matter and the sensible universe are the relations between particular organisms, that is, mind organized into consciousness, and the rest of the world. This leads to results which would in a loose and popular sense be called materialist. But the theory must, as a metaphysical theory, be reckoned on the idealist side. To speak technically, it is an idealist monism."

Tribal self, on the other hand, gives the key to Clifford's ethical view, which explains conscience and the moral law by the development in each individual of a 'self,' which prescribes the conduct conducive to the welfare of the 'tribe.' Much of Clifford's contemporary prominence was due to his attitude toward religion. Animated by an intense love of his conception of truth and devotion to public duty, he waged war on such ecclesiastical systems as seemed to him to favour obscurantism, and to put the claims of sect above those of human society. The alarm was greater, as theology was still unreconciled with Darwinism; and Clifford was regarded as a dangerous champion of the anti-spiritual tendencies then imputed to modern science. There has also been debate on the extent to which Clifford's doctrine of 'concomitance' or 'psychophysical parallelism' influenced John Hughlings Jackson's model of the nervous system and, through him, the work of Janet, Freud, Ribot, and Ey.

Ethics
In his 1877 essay, The Ethics of Belief, Clifford argues that it is immoral to believe things for which one lacks evidence. He describes a ship-owner who planned to send to sea an old and not well-built ship full of passengers. The ship-owner had doubts suggested to him that the ship might not be seaworthy: "These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy." He considered having the ship refitted even though it would be expensive. At last, "he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections." He watched the ship depart, "with a light heart…and he got his insurance money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales."

Clifford argues that the ship-owner was guilty of the deaths of the passengers even though he sincerely believed the ship was sound: "[H]e had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him." Moreover, he contends that even in the case where the ship successfully reaches the destination, the decision remains immoral, because the morality of the choice is defined forever once the choice is made, and actual outcome, defined by blind chance, doesn't matter. The ship-owner would be no less guilty: his wrongdoing would never be discovered, but he still had no right to make that decision given the information available to him at the time.

Clifford famously concludes with what has come to be known as Clifford's principle: "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."

As such, he is arguing in direct opposition to religious thinkers for whom 'blind faith' (i.e. belief in things in spite of the lack of evidence for them) was a virtue. This paper was famously attacked by pragmatist philosopher William James in his "Will to Believe" lecture. Often these two works are read and published together as touchstones for the debate over evidentialism, faith, and overbelief.

Premonition of relativity
Though Clifford never constructed a full theory of spacetime and relativity, there are some remarkable observations he made in print that foreshadowed these modern concepts: In his book Elements of Dynamic (1878), he introduced "quasi-harmonic motion in a hyperbola". He wrote an expression for a parametrized unit hyperbola, which other authors later used as a model for relativistic velocity. Elsewhere he states:

 * The geometry of rotors and motors…forms the basis of the whole modern theory of the relative rest (Static) and the relative motion (Kinematic and Kinetic) of invariable systems.

This passage makes reference to biquaternions, though Clifford made these into split-biquaternions as his independent development. The book continues with a chapter "On the bending of space", the substance of general relativity. Clifford also discussed his views in On the Space-Theory of Matter in 1876.

In 1910, William Barrett Frankland quoted the Space-Theory of Matter in his book on parallelism: "The boldness of this speculation is surely unexcelled in the history of thought. Up to the present, however, it presents the appearance of an Icarian flight." Years later, after general relativity had been advanced by Albert Einstein, various authors noted that Clifford had anticipated Einstein. Hermann Weyl (1923), for instance, mentioned Clifford as one of those who, like Bernhard Riemann, anticipated the geometric ideas of relativity.

In 1940, Eric Temple Bell published The Development of Mathematics, in which he discusses the prescience of Clifford on relativity:

 * Bolder even than Riemann, Clifford confessed his belief (1870) that matter is only a manifestation of curvature in a space-time manifold. This embryonic divination has been acclaimed as an anticipation of Einstein's (1915–16) relativistic theory of the gravitational field. The actual theory, however, bears but slight resemblance to Clifford's rather detailed creed. As a rule, those mathematical prophets who never descend to particulars make the top scores. Almost anyone can hit the side of a barn at forty yards with a charge of buckshot.

John Archibald Wheeler, during the 1960 International Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science (CLMPS) at Stanford, introduced his geometrodynamics formulation of general relativity by crediting Clifford as the initiator.

In The Natural Philosophy of Time (1961), Gerald James Whitrow recalls Clifford's prescience, quoting him in order to describe the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric in cosmology.

Cornelius Lanczos (1970) summarizes Clifford's premonitions:

 * [He] with great ingenuity foresaw in a qualitative fashion that physical matter might be conceived as a curved ripple on a generally flat plane. Many of his ingenious hunches were later realized in Einstein's gravitational theory. Such speculations were automatically premature and could not lead to anything constructive without an intermediate link which demanded the extension of 3-dimensional geometry to the inclusion of time. The theory of curved spaces had to be preceded by the realization that space and time form a single four-dimensional entity.

Likewise, Banesh Hoffmann (1973) writes:

 * Riemann, and more specifically Clifford, conjectured that forces and matter might be local irregularities in the curvature of space, and in this they were strikingly prophetic, though for their pains they were dismissed at the time as visionaries.

In 1990, Ruth Farwell and Christopher Knee examined the record on acknowledgement of Clifford's foresight. They conclude that "it was Clifford, not Riemann, who anticipated some of the conceptual ideas of General Relativity." To explain the lack of recognition of Clifford's prescience, they point out that he was an expert in metric geometry, and "metric geometry was too challenging to orthodox epistemology to be pursued." In 1992, Farwell and Knee continued their study of Clifford and Riemann: "[They] hold that once tensors had been used in the theory of general relativity, the framework existed in which a geometrical perspective in physics could be developed and allowed the challenging geometrical conceptions of Riemann and Clifford to be rediscovered."

Selected writings

 * 1872. On the aims and instruments of scientific thought, 524–41.
 * 1876 [1870]. On the Space-Theory of Matter.
 * 1877. "The Ethics of Belief." Contemporary Review 29:289.
 * 1878. Elements of Dynamic: An Introduction to the Study of Motion And Rest In Solid And Fluid Bodies.
 * Book I: "Translations"
 * Book II: "Rotations"
 * Book III: "Strains"
 * 1878. "Applications of Grassmann's Extensive Algebra." American Journal of Mathematics 1(4):353.
 * 1879: Seeing and Thinking —includes four popular science lectures:
 * "The Eye and the Brain"
 * "The Eye and Seeing"
 * "The Brain and Thinking"
 * "Of Boundaries in General"
 * 1879. Lectures and Essays I & II, with an introduction by Sir Frederick Pollock.
 * 1881. "Mathematical fragments" (facsimiles).
 * 1882. Mathematical Papers, edited by Robert Tucker, with an introduction by Henry J. S. Smith.
 * 1885. The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences, completed by Karl Pearson.
 * 1887. Elements of Dynamic 2.

Quotations
"'I…hold that in the physical world nothing else takes place but this variation [of the curvature of space].'" "'There is no scientific discoverer, no poet, no painter, no musician, who will not tell you that he found ready made his discovery or poem or picture—that it came to him from outside, and that he did not consciously create it from within.'" "'It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.'" "'If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.'" "'I was not, and was conceived. I loved and did a little work. I am not and grieve not.'"

title: William Kingdon Clifford


text:
Talk:Birmingham

Public services
I think the nature of the public services section needs to be looked into regarding cuts. Too much emphasis on cuts made almost a decade ago, is it the same today? Perhaps an update is needed. --148.252.141.75 (talk) 09:16, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

 * Yes it is the same today. In fact, Birmingham Council is bankrupt and has needed to impose more cuts Cal3000000 (talk) 16:03, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Birmingham second city?
Surely Manchester is the second largest city as it's conurbation is larger then the West Midlands County and Birmingham? WMC (2.928million) Vs GMC (7million within one hour of the city)? DragonofBatley (talk) 10:58, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

 * Good catch! I don't have a problem with either city claiming to be second largest as long as the criteria is properly qualified, e.g. "based on population of the core city" or "based on population of the city and its metropolitan area". If it that can't be done then the claim should just be removed. Besides I have never been a fan of WP:PEACOCK claims. 10mmsocket (talk) 11:31, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

 * Wikipedia has a policy called MOS:LEADNOTUNIQUE, which says this:
 * "Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although not everything in the lead must be repeated in the body of the text. Exceptions include specific facts such as quotations, examples, birth dates, taxonomic names, case numbers, and titles. This admonition should not be taken as a reason to exclude information from the lead, but rather to harmonize coverage in the lead with material in the body of the article.
 * I had thought that this policy was pretty plain. So I removed material from the lead, about Birmingham being UK's "second city", for a second time, here. But it was quickly restored, also for a second time, by User:G-13114 who said in their edit summary "Nonsense, the lead is supposed to summarise the main facts about a subject, this is extensively referenced". The sources for this claim are not in dispute. But I'd suggest that very clear WP policy is not "nonsense". 205.239.40.3 (talk) 18:02, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Surely second city is a title? It doesn't need to be covered in the body of the article since it's covered in the Second city of the United Kingdom article in great depth. I'm not sure how your policy is applicable. G-13114 (talk) 19:42, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Surely "second city" is just a description, not a title. Can you quote any definition of this term at the template description? Otherwise it's just a matter of personal interpretation. 205.239.40.3 (talk) 10:10, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

 * The article for Manchester has a single sentence in the sub-section History > Since 2000, which says: "Birmingham has historically been considered to be England or the UK's second city, but in the 21st century claims to this unofficial title have also been made for Manchester." I would suggest a similar sentence, in a similar position, would be appropriate for this article. That would be consistent with the Second city of the United Kingdom article. 86.187.163.17 (talk) 22:26, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Second Largest Local Authority in Europe.
This is uncited, and seems dubious. It is difficult to compare local authorities from one country to another, but it is easy to find local authorities that are larger in terms of population served: for example Moscow, London, Paris and Rome all have some form of city government that is larger than Birmingham, some have elected councils too. It's not clear from the quote what criteria have been applied here. Zeimusu | Talk page 17:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

 * deleted. birmingham city council, being a NUTS-3 area, is smaller than, for example, berlin, paris, and Torino (Turin). This statement is not true. someone might want to check if it is the second biggest in UK, though Cal3000000 (talk) 16:15, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Should the metro or urban region population be in the lead?
I noticed that a contributor has changed the lead section of the Liverpool article just recently. The Liverpool lead section now only includes Liverpool's local authority population and the population of the official city region. Having looked at the Birmingham Leeds and Edinburgh articles, I notice that their lead sections make reference to the wider metropolitan area.

To quote the Birmingham article lead section: "The wider metropolitan area has a population of 4.3 million, making it the largest outside of London." The citation is worldpopulationreview.com

To quote the Leeds article: "The city is part of the fourth-largest built-up area by population in the United Kingdom, West Yorkshire Built-up Area, with a 2011 census population of 1.7 million" The citation is ONS Census 2011. The WY Built-up Area is out of date and is not calculated any more. But I am wondering if this needs to be in the lead section as an editor has removed mention of Liverpool metropolitan area from its lead section.

To quote the Edinburgh lead section, "The wider metropolitan area has a population of 912,490." The citation is OECD.

I am sure there are many many examples on wiki where city articles make reference to a wider 'urban region' or metropolitan area.

Should we be aiming for consistency in these articles? I have also started an RfC on the Leeds, Liverpool and Edinburgh articles. Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 10:40, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Birmingham


text:
Hjalmar Petersen

Hjalmar Petersen (January 2, 1890 – March 29, 1968) was an American politician who served as the 23rd Governor of Minnesota.

Background
Hjalmar Petersen was born in Eskildstrup, Denmark to Lauritz and Anna Petersen, who moved with Hjalmar to Chicago, Illinois shortly after his birth. They later moved to the Danebod in Tyler, Minnesota. Petersen attended school until the seventh grade. His career in journalism, which had begun in 1904, culminated in his purchase in 1914 of the Askov American in Askov, Minnesota, a weekly newspaper he owned for the rest of his life.

Political career
After serving as Askov's village clerk and mayor, Petersen won two terms in the Minnesota House of Representatives, where he sponsored the state income-tax law and urged that tax revenues be spent on public education. Before he ran for the Minnesota Legislature he had been a member of the Republican Party. By the time he ran for office he was a member of the Farmer-Labor Party. He served in the legislature from 1931 to 1934, representing the old House District 56.

Petersen was elected the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota in 1934 and served with Governor Floyd B. Olson. He was sworn in as governor two days after Olson died of cancer on August 22, 1936. He served the remainder of Olson's term but declined to run for governor himself in the November general election, opting instead to launch a successful bid for Railroad and Warehouse Commissioner, a position he then assumed after leaving the governorship on January 4, 1937. He later ran for governor in 1940 and 1942, losing both times to Harold Stassen.

Personal life
After his term as governor, he served as the president of the American Publishing Company. He was married twice, first to Rigmor C. Wosgaard in 1914 and later to Medora Grandprey in 1934. He died in 1968 in Columbus, Ohio.

title: Hjalmar Petersen


text:
Richard Holt Hutton

Richard Holt Hutton (2 June 1826 – 9 September 1897) was an English journalist of literature and religion.

Life and work
The son of Joseph Hutton, a Unitarian minister, Richard Holt Hutton was born at Leeds. His family moved to London in 1835, and he was educated at University College School and University College London, where he began a lifelong friendship with Walter Bagehot, whose works he later edited. He took his degree in 1845, and was awarded the gold medal for philosophy. Meanwhile, he had also studied for short periods at Heidelberg and Berlin, and in 1847 he entered Manchester New College with the idea of becoming a minister like his father, and studied there under James Martineau. He was not, however, called on by any church, and for some time his future was unsettled. In 1851, he married his cousin, Anne Roscoe, and became joint-editor with John Langton Sanford of the Inquirer, the main Unitarian periodical. His innovations and unconventional views about stereotyped Unitarian doctrines caused alarm, and in 1853 he resigned. His health had broken down, and he visited the West Indies, where his wife died of yellow fever.

In 1855 Hutton and Bagehot became joint editors of the National Review, a new monthly which lasted for ten years. During this time Hutton's theological views, influenced directly by Frederick William Robertson and John Frederick Denison Maurice, gradually came closer to those of the Church of England, which he ultimately joined. He brought to his study of theology a spirituality of outlook and an aptitude for metaphysical inquiry and exposition which made his writings more attractive. In 1861 he joined Meredith Townsend as joint editor and part proprietor of the Spectator, then a well-known liberal weekly, but it did not pay. Hutton took charge of the literary side of the paper, and gradually his own articles became one of the best-known features of serious and thoughtful English journalism. The Spectator, which gradually became a prosperous property, was an outlet for his views, particularly on literary, religious and philosophical subjects, in opposition to the agnostic and rationalistic opinions then current in intellectual circles, as popularized by T. H. Huxley.

Hutton had many friends, and became one of the most respected and influential journalists of the day. In 1858 he married Eliza Roscoe, a cousin of his first wife; she died early in 1897, and Hutton's own death followed in the same year.

Among his other publications may be mentioned Essays, Theological and Literary (1871; revised 1888), and Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers (1894), and his opinions may be studied compendiously in the selections from his Spectator articles published in 1899 under the title of Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought.

Interests
He was an original member of the Metaphysical Society (1869). He was an anti-vivisectionist, and a member of the Royal Commission (1875) on that subject, which led to the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876.

Hutton took interest in parapsychology. He was the vice president of the Society for Psychical Research in 1882.

Collections

 * 1871. Essays, Theological and Literary. 2 vols. London: Macmillan. (2nd ed., 1880. 3rd ed., 1888. 4th ed., 1895–1896.)
 * 1894. Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers. 2 vols. London: Macmillan.
 * 1899. Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought. Edited by Elizabeth M. Roscoe. London: Macmillan.
 * 1906. Brief Literary Criticisms. Edited by Elizabeth M. Roscoe. London: Macmillan.
 * 1989. A Victorian Spectator. Edited by Robert H. Tener and Malcolm Woodfield. Bristol: Bristol Press.
 * 1998. A Spectator of Theatre. Edited by Robert H. Tener. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

title: Richard Holt Hutton


text:
Sigmaringen (district)

Sigmaringen is a Landkreis (district) in the south of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from north clockwise) Reutlingen, Biberach, Ravensburg, Bodensee, Constance, Tuttlingen, and Zollernalbkreis.

History
The area of the district was owned by several different states historically. It was split between many minor rulers before the German Mediatisation of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. By 1806 it had become a border area between the Grand Duchy of Baden, the Kingdom of Württemberg, and the much smaller principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen embedded between them.

In 1849 Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen became part of the Prussian Province of Hohenzollern (along with the principality of Hohenzollern-Hechingen). At that time it had the Oberamt (Hohenzollern) of Sigmaringen and Gammertingen, which were merged into the Landkreis of Sigmaringen in 1925. After WWII it became part of the French-controlled state of Württemberg-Hohenzollern until 1952 when it became part of the modern Land of Baden-Württemberg. In 1973 the district was enlarged by adding municipalities from the neighboring districts: Saulgau, Stockach, Überlingen and Reutlingen. A roughly equal portion of the district's area came from each of the three historic states.

Geography
Landkreis Sigmaringen is located in the Swabian Alb mountains, which represent an old glacially-shaped landscape formed by prehistoric moraines. In the south of the district, a line running from Bad Saulgau to Ostrach to Pfullendorf roughly marks the southernmost extent of this prehistoric moraine. This line also marks the Rhine-Danube watershed: north of this line, water drains to the Danube; south of it, water drains to Lake Constance and the Rhine. The Danube flows through the district from west to east for about 60 km. About 30 km of this distance, between Fridingen and Inzigkofen, takes the form of a dramatic canyon through the Swabian Alb. The highest points in the district are the 921 m-tall Schnaitkapf, near Schwenningen in the Alb, and the 837 m-tall Höchsten in the southeast of the district.

The district is also located in Linzgau and Upper Swabia.

Coat of arms
The deer in the coat of arms is the symbol of the duchy of Sigmaringen as well as that of the city of Sigmaringen. This symbol probably is from the Counts of Peutengau-Hirschberg who were the Lords of Sigmaringen until 1253. Hirsch is the German word for deer. The red color with the white bar below the deer derives from the Austrian coat of arms, as part of the district belonged to Austria historically.

title: Sigmaringen (district)


text:
Frederick William Robertson

Frederick William Robertson (3 February 1816 – 15 August 1853), known as Robertson of Brighton, was an English divine.

Biography
Born in London, the first five years of his life were passed at Leith Fort, where his father, a captain in the Royal Artillery, was then resident. The military spirit entered into his blood, and throughout life he was characterised by the qualities of the ideal soldier. In 1821 Captain Robertson retired to Beverley, where the boy was educated. At the age of fourteen he spent a year at Tours, from which he returned to Scotland, and continued his education at the Edinburgh Academy and university.

In 1834 he was articled to a solicitor in Bury St Edmunds, but the uncongenial and sedentary employment soon broke down his health. He was anxious for a military career, and his name was placed upon the list of the 3rd Dragoons, then serving in India. For two years he worked hard in preparing for the army, but, by a singular conjunction of circumstances and at the sacrifice of his own natural bent to his father's wish, he matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, just two weeks before his commission was put into his hands.

He did not find Oxford wholly congenial to his intensely earnest spirit, but he read hard, and, as he afterwards said, "Plato, Aristotle, Butler, Thucydides, Sterne, Jonathan Edwards; passed like the iron atoms of the blood into my mental constitution." At the same time he made a careful study of the Bible, committing to memory the entire New Testament both in English and in Greek. The Tractarian movement had no attraction for him, although he admired some of its leaders.

He was at this time a moderate Calvinist in doctrine, and enthusiastically evangelical. Ordained in July 1840 by the bishop of Winchester, he at once entered on ministerial work in that city, and during his ministry there and under the influence of the missionaries Henry Martyn and David Brainerd, whose lives he studied, he carried devotional asceticism to an injurious length. In less than a year he was compelled to seek relaxation; and 'going to Switzerland he there met and married Helen, third daughter of Sir George William Denys, Bart.

Early in 1842, after a few months' rest, he accepted a curacy in Cheltenham, which he retained for upwards of four years. The questioning spirit was first aroused in him by the disappointing fruit of evangelical doctrine which he found in Cheltenham, as well as by intimacy with men of varied reading. But, if we are to judge from his own statement in a letter from Heidelberg in 1846, the doubts which now actively assailed him had long been latent in his mind. The crisis of his mental conflict had just been passed in Tirol, and he was now beginning to let his creed grow again from the one fixed point, which nothing had availed to shift: "The one great certainty to which, in the midst of the darkest doubt, I never ceased to cling—the entire symmetry and loveliness and the unequalled nobleness of the humanity of the Son of Man." After this mental revolution he felt unable to return to Cheltenham, but after doing duty for two months at St Ebbe's, Oxford, he entered in August 1847 on his famous ministry at Holy Trinity Church, Brighton. Here he stepped at once into the foremost rank as a preacher, and his church was thronged with thoughtful men of all classes in society and of all shades of religious belief. His fine appearance, his flexible and sympathetic voice, his manifest. sincerity, the perfect lucidity and artistic symmetry of his address, and the brilliance with which he illustrated his points would have attracted hearers even had he had little to say. But he had much to say. He was not, indeed, a scientific theologian; but his insight into the principles of the spiritual life was unrivalled. As his biographer says, thousands found in his sermons "a living source of impulse, a practical direction of thought, a key to many of the problems of theology, and above all a path to spiritual freedom." Rabbi Duncan, however, said of him, "Robertson believed that Christ did something or other, which, somehow or other, had some connection or other with salvation."

Robertson's closing years were full of sadness. His sensitive nature was subjected to extreme suffering, arising mainly from the opposition aroused by his sympathy with the revolutionary ideas of the 1848 epoch. Moreover, he was crippled by incipient disease of the brain, which at first inflicted unconquerable lassitude and depression, and latterly agonising pain. On 5 June 1853 he preached for the last time, and on 15 August he died. For the last three years of his life he had lived at 60 Montpelier Road in the Montpelier area of Brighton; between 1847 and 1850 he lived at 9 Montpelier Terrace.

Robertson's published works include five volumes of sermons, two volumes of expository lectures, on Genesis and on the epistles to the Corinthians, a volume of miscellaneous addresses, and an Analysis of "In Memoriam." See Life and Letters by Stopford A Brooke (1865).

title: Frederick William Robertson