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Boulton Paul Defiant

The Boulton Paul Defiant is a British interceptor aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. The Defiant was designed and built by Boulton Paul Aircraft as a "turret fighter" to meet the RAF requirement for day and night fighters that could concentrate their firepower on enemy bombers which were not expected to have fighter escorts due to the distance from Germany to the United Kingdom. The Defiant had all its armament in a dorsal turret offering the ability to fire in most directions. The same principle was used in the Royal Navy's Blackburn Roc which was also built by Boulton Paul.

In combat, the Defiant was found to be effective at destroying bombers, the role it was designed for, but was vulnerable to the Luftwaffe's more manoeuvrable, single-seat Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters operating from bases in Northern France. The Defiant had been designed to destroy unescorted bombers by means of beam or ventral attacks and therefore lacked forward-firing armament, which proved to be a great weakness in daylight combat with fighters. It was withdrawn from daytime operations for use as a night fighter and found success in combination with the use of aircraft interception radar (A.I.) to locate the enemy. It eventually equipped thirteen squadrons in this role, compared to just two squadrons as a day-fighter, though this was mainly due to slow initial production. In mid-1942 it was replaced by better performing night-fighters, the Bristol Beaufighter and de Havilland Mosquito. The Defiant continued to find use in gunnery training, target towing, electronic countermeasures and air-sea rescue. Among RAF pilots it had the nickname "Daffy".

Origins
During the 1930s, the increasing speed of military aircraft posed a particular challenge to anti-aircraft defences. Advances in aircraft design achieved during the 1920s and 1930s had resulted in a generation of multi-engined monoplane bombers that were substantially faster than their contemporary single-engined biplane fighters then in service. The RAF came to believe that its new generation of turret-armed bombers, such as the Vickers Wellington, would be capable of readily penetrating enemy airspace and of defending themselves without any accompanying fighter escort, but also recognised that the bombers of other European air forces, such as the Luftwaffe, would similarly be able to penetrate British airspace with impunity.

During 1935, the concept of a turret-armed defensive fighter to counter the bomber threat emerged during a time in which the RAF anticipated having to defend Great Britain against massed formations of unescorted enemy bombers. The RAF did not expect bombers to be escorted by fighters because fighters would not have the range to reach the UK from Germany. In theory, turret-armed fighters would approach an enemy bomber from below or from the side and coordinate their fire. The separation of the tasks of flying the aircraft and firing the guns would allow the pilot to concentrate on putting the fighter into the best position for the gunner to engage the enemy. However, manually-traversed turrets were viewed as increasingly inadequate to effectively respond to ever-faster hostile aircraft, thus there was considerable interest in using a power-augmented turret.

The earlier Hawker Demon biplane had tested the concept with 59 of the fighters, which had been manufactured by Boulton Paul under a sub-contract, having been equipped with a hydraulically-powered rear turret, while a number of aircraft already built were also converted as such. Boulton Paul and its managing director John Dudley North had gained considerable experience with defensive turrets from producing several earlier aircraft, including the Boulton Paul Overstrand bomber, and had devised a four-gun power-operated turret, the concept and development work of which would later be a core part of the Defiant design. Boulton Paul had acquired a four-gun powered turret from the French SAMM company in 1935.

In April 1935, the Air Ministry released Specification F.9/35, which required a two-seater day and night "turret fighter" capable of 290 mph at 15000 ft. The aircraft was to feature a clean design, concentrating its armament within a power-operated turret, and the accepted performance was to be only slightly beneath that of other emergent fighter designs of the period, along with a sufficient fuel capacity to allow it to perform standing patrols. In particular, the powered turret was to offer considerable flexibility, possessing both a 360-degree upper hemisphere field of fire and the ability to engage enemy bombers from a range of quarters, including below the aircraft itself. Specification F.9/35 had followed the earlier Specification F.5/33, which had sought a pusher design combined with a forward-set turret; F.5/33 had been abandoned as the proposals had offered little in terms of performance gains over existing fighters, and the corresponding Armstrong Whitworth AW.34 design which had been ordered was not completed.

F.5/35 was issued to British manufacturers in June 1935. Seven responded to the tender: Armstrong Whitworth (twin-engines, based on the AW.34), Boulton and Paul (P.82), Bristol (Type 147), Fairey, Gloster, Hawker, and Supermarine (Type 305). Vickers did start on a design but did not provide it to the Air Ministry In September 1935 the Air Ministry picked Hawker, Boulton Paul and Armstrong Whitworth designs as the top three (in decreasing order); Gloster and Bristol were rejected due to their turret designs. The Air Ministry wanted several designs investigated and the production of two prototypes of each. To get this large number of aircraft, HM Treasury had to approve the expenditure above that already allocated. Seven prototypes were ordered - one from Armstrong Whitworth, two each from Fairey, Hawker and Boulton Paul - but only the two Defiant prototypes and one Hawker were completed.

P.82
Boulton Paul, having been focused on turret-equipped aircraft for some time, made the submission to Specification F.9/35; with the company designation of P.82. The proposed fighter was similar in size and appearance to the more conventional Hawker Hurricane, differing in weight primarily due to the use of turret-based armaments. The central feature of the P.82 was its four-gun turret, based on a design by French aviation company Société d'applications des machines motrices (SAMM), which had been licensed by Boulton Paul for use in the earlier Boulton Paul Sidestrand bomber, eventually installed in the "follow-up" design, the Boulton Paul Overstrand and in the Blackburn Roc naval fighter. The 'Type A' turret was an electro-hydraulically powered "drop-in" unit, with a crank-operated mechanical backup. Small bombs could be housed in recesses in the outer wing. Some of the development work from the company's earlier B.1/35 tender was carried over into the P.82.

In 1936, Boulton Paul commenced assembly on the first P.82 prototype, K8310, at their new Wolverhampton facility; an order for a second prototype, K8620, was received by the following year. In 1937, the first P.82 prototype, K8310, was rolled out. Furnished with a 1,030 hp (768 kW) Rolls-Royce Merlin I and initially lacking its turret, the aircraft bore a great resemblance to the contemporary Hawker Hurricane, although it was at least 1500 lb heavier. On 11 August 1937, K8310, which had recently received the name Defiant, conducted its maiden flight. This initial flight, piloted by Boulton Paul's chief test pilot Cecil Feather, occurred nearly a year ahead of the rival Hotspur but still without the turret. Official acceptance trials did not commence until nine months later. On 30 July 1939, the second prototype, K8620, equipped with a Merlin II engine and a full turret, conducted its first flight. K8620 had received various modifications over the first prototype, such as telescopic radio masts and revisions to the canopy and to the undercarriage fairing plates; implementing these improvements had incurred delays to the completion of the second prototype.

Production orders had been prepared for the Hotspur, the initial front-running submission but Boulton Paul's turret design had gained the attention of the Air Ministry. Hawker's progress on the project had been delayed by their commitments on other aircraft programs including the more conventional Hurricane; thus the prototype Hotspur, K8309, did not conduct its maiden flight until 14 June 1938. On 28 April 1937, an initial production order for 87 aircraft was received by Boulton Paul for the P.82; as this was prior to the first flight of the prototype, the aircraft had effectively been ordered 'off the drawing board'. The order for the rival Hotspur was cancelled in 1938.

Completing its acceptance tests with the turret installed, the Defiant attained a top speed of 302 mph and subsequently was declared the victor of the turret fighter competition. Flight trials had revealed the aircraft to possess positive flight characteristics and considerable stability, which was of particular value when using the turret. According to aviation author Michael Bowyer, the usefulness of the Defiant had suffered due to the overly long development time for the type, observing that the Defiant's service entry was delayed to such an extent that only three production aircraft had reached the RAF, and these were only for trial purposes, by the outbreak of the Second World War. Due to delays with the type entering production, there were not enough available Defiants to begin standing patrols in 1940, by which point the introduction of not only more advanced fighters but bombers as well had allegedly undermined the usefulness of the type.

Production
On 30 July 1939, the first production Defiant, L6950, conducted its maiden flight; it commenced official trials with the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) in September that year. Apart from some detail changes, the production Defiant Mk I looked similar to the two Defiant prototypes. It was powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin III engine, which was capable of generating 1,030 hp/768 kW or 1,160 hp/865 kW.

By January 1940, over half of the original production batch had been completed. Beyond the initial production order in April 1937, follow-on orders had been issued for the type; in February 1938, an additional 202 Defiant Mk I aircraft were ordered; three months later, another 161 aircraft were ordered. At the same time Boulton Paul were engaged in production of the Blackburn Roc. In December 1939, yet another 150 aircraft were ordered, raising the overall total to 513. In 1940, this rose to 563 Defiant Mk Is on order, while a further 280 were ordered under a rearranged manufacturing plan issued in mid-1940. However, the performance of the Defiant had been determined to be inadequate by this point, which led to manufacturing being sustained principally for economic reasons. A total of 713 Defiant Mk I aircraft were completed.

In response to a service request which sought greater performance, the Defiant Mk II, powered by the 1,260 hp Merlin XX engine, was promptly developed. On 20 July 1940, N1550, the first production Defiant Mk II performed its initial flight. The Mk II featured a pressurised fuel system, additional fuel, an enlarged rudder, a deeper radiator, a modified engine mounting and elongated cowling. Once sufficient numbers of the Merlin XX engine were available, production of the improved variant commenced; in August 1941, the first production deliveries of the Defiant Mk II took place.

The Defiant Mk II was soon paired with the newly developed AI to become more effective night fighter. While initial AI equipment was too heavy and bulky to be practical for equipping smaller aircraft, the improved AI Mk. IV radar was suitably sized for the Defiant; the first such equipped Defiants were introduced in late 1941. Later versions of the AI radar were adopted over time, such as the AI Mk VI. The need for both the Defiant (and the Hurricane) in the night fighter role petered out by 1942 as the larger Bristol Beaufighter became the RAF's primary night fighter type, freeing both aircraft for other duties.

In the search for alternative uses for the Defiant, which included limited service with the RAF Search and Rescue Force and suitability trials for cooperative operations with the British Army, it was determined that Defiant production would continue in order to satisfy a pressing requirement for high speed gunnery targets. A dedicated version of the aircraft, the Defiant TT Mk I, was developed for this purpose; modifications included the removal of the turret, the installation of target-towing equipment, including a target stowage box and a wind-driven winch, and the addition of a winch operator under an enclosed canopy. In January 1942, the prototype Defiant TT Mk I, DR863, conducted its maiden flight; fighter production was phased out shortly thereafter.

The last Defiant Mk IIs under construction were completed as TT Mk I aircraft. Dozens of existing Defiant Mk Is would be remanufactured to the similar Defiant TT Mk III standard; roughly 150 of such conversions took place during 1943–1944. So that the type could be used to meet the growing overseas demand for target-towing aircraft, the Defiant was tropicalized, a large portion of which was the installation of large filters underneath the aircraft's nose.

P.85
The P.85 was Boulton Paul's tender to Specification O.30/35 for the naval turret fighter. A version of the Defiant for Fleet Air Arm (FAA), it had leading edge slats and a deeper fuselage, for the lower landing speeds required of carrier aircraft. The engine would be either a Bristol Hercules radial or the Merlin. Despite the P.85's higher estimated top speed, the Blackburn Roc was selected. With Blackburn already busy producing other projects, the detail design and production of the Roc was given to Boulton Paul. Ultimately, the only use of the Defiant within the FAA was its adoption of the target tug version.

P.94
The first Defiant prototype had not been fitted with a turret at first and had an impressive top speed. In 1940, Boulton Paul removed the turret from the prototype as a demonstrator for a fixed-gun fighter based on Defiant components. The armament offered was either 12 .303 in Browning machine guns (six per wing) or four 20 mm Hispano cannon in place of eight of the Brownings. The guns could be depressed for ground attack. By that time, the RAF had sufficient quantities of Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires and did not require a new single-seat fighter. With a calculated top speed of about 360 mph at 21700 ft the P.94 was almost as fast as a contemporary Spitfire although less manoeuvrable.

Design

The Defiant was a single-engine interceptor aircraft. It used a monoplane structure which was coupled with main landing gear which retracted into a broad mainplane section. The pilot's cockpit and rear turret were faired into a streamlined upper fuselage section. Tankage for up to 104 impgal of fuel was housed within the wing centre section along with a large ventral radiator that completed the resemblance to the Hawker fighter. The centre section employed a two-spar arrangement, and the wing itself had removable wingtips. The rear fuselage comprised two metal cones connected by a two-foot transitional section and a flat upper deck. The Defiant employed an all-metal stressed skin monocoque structure. The fuselage was built in sections that were subsequently bolted together, a manufacturing method previously used on other Boulton Paul-designed aircraft which they thought made the riveting process easier. It was a relatively clean design and made use of a simple, weight-saving structure.

The primary mission of the Defiant was the destruction of incoming enemy bombers. The principal armament of the aircraft is its powered dorsal turret, equipped with four 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns. The fuselage was fitted with aerodynamic fairings that helped mitigate the drag of the turret; they were pneumatically powered and automatically raised and lowered into the fuselage so that the turret could rotate freely. The Brownings were electrically fired and insulated cut-off points in the turret ring prevented the guns firing when they were pointing at the propeller disc or tailplane. The gunner could rotate the turret directly forward and transfer firing control of the guns to the pilot, with the guns firing along each side of the cockpit canopy; this was rarely done as the turret's minimum forward elevation was 19° and the pilot did not have a gunsight, possibly because the Defiant was outfitted to perform zero deflection shooting, as were several contemporaneous designs arising from Air Ministry specifications.

The zero deflection gunnery technique was practised, among others, by British ace Albert Ball using Lewis guns on Foster mounts – which largely eliminated the need for either complex gun sights or aiming-off by eye. An elevation of +19° combined with ballistic properties of .303 (7.7mm) Brownings and the Defiant's operational speed made 'line of sight' aiming – as practised by Luftwaffe pilots – a practical proposition. This technique, applied later in the war by Germany as Schräge Musik, seems to have been neither taught nor practised by the RAF. Despite being common knowledge among veteran First World War aircrew, featuring in Air Ministry requirements reflected in fighter designs such as the contemporaneous Gloster F.9/37 (Gloster G9) twin-engine bomber-interceptor – armed with five 20mm cannon at +12° – virtually all losses of Bomber Command aircraft shot down by Luftwaffe night fighters using upward-firing were ascribed to flak until 1944.

The gunner operated the turret through a control column with the firing button on the top. The motor could be put in high speed mode for swift changes of direction and the there was a handle for manual rotation of the turret.

The gunner's hatch was in the rear of the turret, which had to be rotated to the side for entry and exit. There was not enough room in the turret for the gunner to wear a seat-type or back pack parachute; the parachute was stowed alongside the gunner instead. This made escape from the aircraft so difficult that gunners were later provided with a special all-in-one garment, a 'parasuit', nicknamed the "rhino suit". Frederick "Gus" Platts, an air gunner who served in 230, 282 and 208 squadrons, stated: "The Rhino suit we had to wear on Defiants was a bear but I couldn't come up with an alternative, even though it killed dozens of us. I forget the details of it but we could not have sat on our chute or even keep it nearby as in other turrets, so you wore – all in one – an inner layer that fitted a little like a wetsuit of today. The chute fitted around this, and then the dinghy and the outer clothing. There was inner webbing and pockets that literally fell apart (I presume) when one bailed out".

Air combat
In October 1939, No. 264 (Madras Presidency) Squadron was reformed at RAF Sutton Bridge to operate the Defiant. Initial training, formal squadron acceptance, and development of tactics began with other aircraft as it received its first Defiants only in early December at Martlesham Heath. In February 1940, the Defiant commenced night fighter training operations; the squadron tested its tactics against British medium bombers – Hampdens and Blenheims – and 264's CO flew against Robert Stanford Tuck in a Spitfire, showing that the Defiant could defend itself by circling and keeping its speed up. It became clear during these trials that the Defiant was suited only to performing its designed for bomber-destroyer duties and was vulnerable to fighters.

By March 1940, 264 Squadron had two flights operational with Defiants and No. 141 Squadron received its first Defiant. When the Defiant was first introduced to the public, the RAF put out a disinformation campaign, stating that the Defiant had 21 guns: four in the turret, 14 in the wings and three cannon in the nose. On 12 May 1940, the first operational sortie occurred as a flight of six Defiants flew with six Spitfires of 66 Squadron over the English Channel to the coastline in the vicinity of The Hague, Netherlands; during this flight, a single Ju 88, which had been in the process of attacking a destroyer, was shot down. The following day, in a patrol that was a repetition of the first, Defiants claimed four Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, but were subsequently attacked by a flight of Bf 109Es. The escorting Spitfires were unable to prevent five of the six Defiants from being shot down by a frontal attack.

During the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, the squadron was based at RAF Manston, as one of the 16 squadrons that No. 11 Group had for the evacuation. On 27 May 264 Squadron claimed three He 111 and two damaged. On 28 May, shortly after take-off, 10 Defiants were attacked by about 30 Bf 109s – forming a circle, they claimed six German fighters for the loss of three Defiants. The Defiant was initially successful against enemy aircraft and its best day was 29 May, when No. 264 Squadron claimed 37 kills in two sorties: 19 Ju 87 Stukas, mostly picked off as they came out of their dives, nine Messerschmitt Bf 110 twin-engined heavy fighters, eight Bf 109s, and a Ju 88. One Defiant gunner was lost after he bailed out but the pilot managed to fly the aircraft back to its base and it was subsequently repaired. On 31 May, seven Defiants were lost in one day as Hurricanes and Spitfires failed to come to their aid in a battle with Bf 109s. It was concluded that underslung radio aerials on the Defiants had affected radio communication between the fighter squadrons

Luftwaffe fighters suffered losses when "bouncing" flights of Defiants from the rear, apparently mistaking them for Hurricanes. The German pilots were unaware of the Defiant's rear-firing armament and encountered concentrated defensive fire. The Luftwaffe changed tactics, to outmanoeuvre the Defiant and attack from below or dead ahead, where the turret guns offered no defence. Defiant losses quickly mounted, particularly among the gunners, who were often unable to leave stricken aircraft. The additional weight of the turret and the second crewman plus the aerodynamic drag gave the Defiant a lower performance than conventional single-seat fighter aircraft.

264 Squadron developed a counter against single-seat aircraft such as the Bf 109. By flying in an ever-descending Lufbery circle, Defiant crews sacrificed the advantage of height but eliminated the possibility of attack from underneath, while giving 360° of defensive fire. This tactic was used by 264 Squadron, but when the Defiants of 141 Sqn were committed to combat a few months later during the Battle of Britain, it chose to ignore their advice. On 19 July, seven out of nine 141 Squadron Defiants sent to cover a convoy off Folkestone were shot down by Bf 109s of JG 51, and the remaining two survived, one badly damaged, thanks only to the intervention of Hurricanes of 111 Sqn. The Hurricane pilots reported that the Defiants had shot down four Bf 109s. Although 264 Squadron claimed 48 kills in eight days over Dunkirk, the cost was high with 14 Defiants lost. Actual German losses were no more than 12–15 enemy aircraft; the turret's wide angle of fire meant that several Defiants could engage the same target at one time, leading to multiple claims.

On 22 August, in response to an urgent demand for aircraft to defend Britain's airspace, 264 Squadron relocated to RAF Hornchurch, Essex, while also using RAF Manston as a forward base. On 24 August, nine Defiants of 264 scrambled from Manston to engage an incoming German force; in the ensuing engagement, three Ju 88s and a single Bf 109E were shot down for the loss of two Defiants. Later that same day, another cluster of bombers appeared and were engaged by seven Defiants that had been in the process of refuelling; three Ju 88s and two Bf 109Es were downed while one Defiant was in turn downed along with another damaged.

On 26 August 264 Squadron engaged a formation of 12 Dornier Do 17 bombers over north-eastern Kent but was attacked by a large formation of Bf 109s. Three aircraft were lost (two to ace Hpt. Gunther Lutzow of JG 3) but six Do 17s and a Bf 109 were shot down. Three of those victories were awarded to one Defiant, crewed by Flight Sergeants E. R. Thorn (pilot) and F. J. Barker (air gunner). They shot down two Do 17s but were then engaged by a Bf 109, which set their Defiant on fire; they managed to shoot down the German fighter before making a forced landing. For this, they were awarded a bar to the Distinguished Flying Medal.

The squadron lost a further five aircraft (to JG 26) on 28 August, with nine crew killed, and effectively ended operations, withdrawing to RAF Duxford the following day. With these losses, the Defiant—which had been intended from the start as a day and night fighter—was transferred to night operations instead. The type had proven unsuited to the demands of the day fighter when set against the likes of the Bf 109E, and was less capable than other RAF aircraft such as the Hurricane and the Spitfire. By 31 August, over half the delivered Defiants had been shot down by Luftwaffe aircraft, a rate that was deemed to be unacceptable.

The Defiant's kill ratio was better than is commonly thought. In 20 days of frontline service in the Battle of Britain in July and August, 141 and 264 Squadron shot down 25 German aircraft for the loss of 17 Defiants. It was concluded that when operating against escorted bombers the Defiant should always be sent into battle with a top cover of Hurricanes or Spitfires so it could concentrate on its designed for role of shooting down the bombers, but this proved impractical particularly as the Defiant's radio reception (due to its underslung antenna) was relatively poor.

On 1 July, 141 Squadron despatched L6997 on the first Defiant night patrol. In August, the squadron was operating both by day and night; on 15 August, the first possible nighttime success by a Defiant was recorded, and from September onwards, the squadron principally operated at night. In September, as a response to the commencement of heavy attacks upon London by the Luftwaffe, known as the Blitz, B Flight of No. 141 moved to RAF Biggin Hill, Bromley, while A Flight relocated to Gatwick Airport, West Sussex in October prior to moving to RAF Gravesend, Kent. Successful claimed interceptions took place, such as two He 111s being claimed on 15/16 September; the first confirmed kill by Defiant of the squadron was made on 22 December, of a single He 111.

The Defiant night fighters had initially lacked aircraft interception radar, thus enemy aircraft were spotted and attacked via the eyes of the crew alone, aided by ground-based searchlights intended to illuminate attacking bombers. In the opening months of 1941, as the German night bombing campaign reached its peak, increasing numbers of Defiant night fighter-equipped squadrons became operational and commenced night patrols although, according to Bowyer, there were relatively few claims across many Defiant sorties. As a counterpoint, aviation author John Taylor noted that during the Blitz on London of 1940–41, the four Defiant-equipped squadrons were responsible for shooting down more enemy aircraft than any other type in the theatre.

The improved Defiant Mk II model was fitted with the AI Mk. IV radar and a Merlin XX engine, increasing the aircraft's performance, particularly at night time. In September 1941, 264 Squadron became the first to receive the Defiant Mk II, bringing them into operational use by mid-September. The principal users of the Mk II night fighter were 96, 151, and 262 Squadrons. As the radar-equipped Defiants began filtering through to operational squadrons, the Luftwaffe's bombing campaign petered out as German forces had become heavily engaged on the Eastern Front as they embarked upon the Operation Barbarossa the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Defiant night fighters typically attacked enemy bombers from below, in a similar manoeuvre to the later German Schräge Musik method. Defiants attacked more often from slightly ahead or to one side, rather than from directly under the tail. The turret-fighter concept was not immediately discarded. Four-gun turrets were fitted to Beaufighter (Mk II, in 1941) and Mosquito (Bristol design turret, September 1941) night fighters to test the advantages of flexible firing in nightfighting but the effect on top speed (for the Beaufighter reduced from 303 mph to 272 mph at altitude) was not acceptable and those conversions were abandoned. Further developments were considered using more powerful engines, but the idea of a Defiant replacement was finally dropped in 1942

Other roles
After trials in 1940 with the School of Army Co-operation to assess its capabilities in that role, the Defiant was tested as a high-speed gunnery trainer with the Air Ministry agreeing to continue production. The Defiant was removed from combat duties in 1942 and used for training, target towing, electronic countermeasures and air-sea rescue.

Two types of electronic countermeasures equipment were carried by the Defiant, both countering the German Freya early warning radar. The first system to be deployed was "Moonshine", which re-transmitted the radar's signals to simulate large formations of aircraft. As each "Moonshine" transmitter only covered part of the Freya's frequency, a formation of eight Defiants was needed, giving the appearance of over 100 aircraft. As the system required formation flying, it could only be used in daylight, where it could draw German fighters onto British fighters leaving another area relatively free for a British bombing raid.

A "Special Duties Flight" was set up in May 1942 to use the new countermeasures equipment, with "Moonshine" being used for its first live test on 6 August 1942. Subsequently, it was used operationally as part of "Circuses" against coastal targets and on 19 August in support of the Dieppe Raid. The Flight became No. 515 Squadron RAF on 1 October 1942, operations with "Moonshine" continuing until November 1942.

515 Squadron continued operations with the second countermeasures system, "Mandrel", a noise jammer which overwhelmed the signals from Freya. Individual Defiants were sent to orbit positions 50 miles (80 km) off the enemy coast. By using nine aircraft a 200-mile (320-km) gap could be made in the Germans' radar coverage. 515 Squadron flew its first mission using Mandrel on the night of 5/6 December 1942, continuing to use its Defiants for jamming operations until early 1943, when it began to receive twin-engined Bristol Beaufighters which had longer range and could carry more electronic equipment. The Defiant flew its last jamming mission on 17 July 1943, with one aircraft being lost out of four sent out that night.

In the air-sea rescue role, the Defiant was the intended replacement for the Westland Lysander in shallow air-sea rescue units. In order for this task to be performed, Defiants in this capacity were equipped with a pair of underwing pods that each contained two M-type dinghies. In March 1942, No. 281 Squadron formed at RAF Ouston, Northumberland, partially operating Defiant Mk Is; four more squadrons received the type within the next two months. However, six months following their introduction to the role, the Defiant had proved to be a poor choice for the role, in part due to the aircraft already been worn out by their previous service, which limited the sortie rate; other issues included its high stalling speed and wide turning radius. By the end of 1942, the Defiant had been phased out of the air-sea role.

A high-speed target tug variant, the Defiant Mk III, was developed in response to a growing demand for such a type; this model featured considerable modifications for the role, such as lacking the dorsal turret. Many of the surviving Mk I and Mk II Defiants also had their turrets removed when they were converted for the same role. In this final target towing variant, the Defiant ended up with a number of overseas assignments with both the RAF and Fleet Air Arm in the Middle East, Africa and India. Further deployments occurred to Canada, where the Defiant was used as a target tug and trainer with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

Defiants were also used for "special" work including tactical evaluations with the RAF Gunnery Research Unit and the Air Fighting Development Unit (AFDU) at Farnborough. Two Defiants were issued for ejection seat development work: one to R Malcolm Ltd (later ML Aviation) and the other to Martin-Baker. On 11 December 1944, Defiant DR944 was delivered to Martin-Baker's facility at Denham; sometime thereafter, a primitive ejector seat was fitted into the observers position for trial purposes. On 11 May 1945, Martin-Baker used DR944 to test their first ejection seat with dummy launches. Various trials using DR944 took place until May 1948. The other Defiant, AA292, was delivered to R Malcolm Ltd at White Waltham Airfield on 15 April 1945 and the first airborne trial with dummies was held in the following October.

The last operational use of Defiants was in India, where they were used as target tugs.

Variants

 * Defiant Mk I
 * Two-seat turret fighter for the RAF, powered by a 1,030 hp (768 kW) Rolls-Royce Merlin III piston engine; 723 built.

 * Defiant NF Mk I
 * Defiant Mk I converted into night fighters

 * Defiant NF Mk IA
 * NF Mk I with aircraft interception radar.

 * Defiant ASR Mk I
 * Mk I carrying air-dropped dinghies for air-sea rescue.

 * Defiant TT Mk I
 * Defiant Mk IIs converted to target tugs; 150 conversions.

 * Defiant Mk II
 * Two-seat night fighter for the RAF, powered by a 1,280 hp (954 kW) Rolls-Royce Merlin XX piston engine, and fitted with the AI Mk IV aircraft interception radar; 210 built.

 * Defiant TT Mk III
 * Dedicated turret-less target tug; 140 built from new.

Operators

 * 🇮🇳 British India
 * 🇨🇦 Canada
 * 🇺🇸 United States
 * 🇺🇸 United States
 * 🇺🇸 United States
 * 🇺🇸 United States

Surviving aircraft

The only surviving complete example of the type is a Defiant I, N1671, on display as a night fighter at the Royal Air Force Museum Cosford in Shropshire. It was one of four Defiants delivered to No. 307 Polish Night Fighter Squadron at RAF Kirton in Lindsey, Lincolnshire on 17 September 1940 and was passed to No. 153 Squadron at the end of October 1941 and 285 Sqn in 1942. In 1954, it was identified for storage as a historical aircraft and passed to the RAF Museum at Hendon, London in 1971.

The aircraft was moved on 20 May 2009 to Rochester Airport, where it was restored by the Medway Aircraft Preservation Society (MAPS). It was returned to Hendon on 6 December 2012, and was then moved from Hendon to Royal Air Force Museum Cosford in November 2016 for display in the War in the Air hangar.

Major parts of at least two other Defiants survive; N1766 and N3378, both Mk Is. A full-scale replica Defiant was created on site at Boulton Paul in Wolverhampton by ex-Boulton Paul engineer Jack Holmes and team at the Boulton Paul Heritage Society. More than 50,000 man hours went into its production and it was unveiled in 2003 marking 60 years since the last Defiant flew out of Pendeford (the World War II training airfield next to the Boulton Paul Factory in Wolverhampton). Due to change of ownership at the Boulton Paul site, the Defiant faced losing its home in Wolverhampton, and in 2015 was relocated to its now permanent home on display at the Kent Battle of Britain Museum in the colours of 264 Squadron (L7005).

title: Boulton Paul Defiant


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Fortune (Unix)

  is a program that displays a pseudorandom message from a database of quotations. Early versions of the program appeared in Version 7 Unix in 1979. The most common version on modern systems is the BSD, originally written by Ken Arnold. Distributions of fortune are usually bundled with a collection of themed files, containing sayings like those found on fortune cookies (hence the name), quotations from famous people, jokes, or poetry.

is predominantly found on Unix-like systems, but clients for other platforms also exist. Often, users on text-mode Unix terminals will place this command into either their  or   files to display them at logon and logout, respectively. It is also used to generate text input for certain XScreenSaver modes. It is possible to pipe fortune into the cowsay command, to add more humor to the dialog.

Content
Most Unix systems use fortunes which are slanted heavily toward the user base of Unix, and thus contain many obscure jokes about computer science and computer programming. Other favoured sources include quotations from science fiction (Star Trek, The Cyberiad, Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc.), Zippy the Pinhead, and the writings of Ambrose Bierce and Dave Barry. Most fortune collections also include a wide variety of more conventionally sourced quotations, jokes, and other short passages. A few distributions include "offensive" dicta, which require the  or   options to be passed for viewing. These fortunes often include rude humor and profanity, personal attacks, and controversial comments about religion. Sometimes they are provided by another package, however as of FreeBSD 10.0 the offensive dicta have been removed completely. As of November 2017, the quotations (with the exception of tips relevant to system operation) have been removed from FreeBSD entirely after user complaints regarding quotations from Adolf Hitler being contained in some of the files. The exact fortunes vary between each type of Unix, however there seems to be a strong overlap between the FreeBSD and OpenBSD fortune files. The Plan 9 fortune files seem to be much shorter, with many just on 1 line, and the 'offensive' dicta is much stronger. Most Linux distributions, such as Debian (and its derivatives), choose the FreeBSD fortunes to put in their fortune packages, that can be installed through the package manager.

Purpose
One of the included fortunes, from the "goedel" collection of fortunes about  itself, sums up the purpose of the program: Has anyone realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is to defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a non-cynical, or even an informative cookie? Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or only serves to blunt the warning signs.

Long live the revolution! Have a nice day. The original  program could be used for the more general task of picking up a random line from a plain-text file. However, in most modern Unix systems  cannot be used this way, since they use an ad hoc file format for fortune files to allow multiline aphorisms.

Fortune files
Conventional versions of  use two files for each quotation list: a text file with quotations, each separated by the character "%" on its own line, and a random-access data file generated by the  (1) program. Alternative implementations, including those made for display on Web pages, typically use only the text file.

Common options
Several common options exist that change the way command-line versions of fortune behave:

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

title: Fortune (Unix)


text:
User:Lakefall~enwiki

Lakefall is a Finnish male born in 1980.

fi:Käyttäjä:Lakefall

title: User:Lakefall~enwiki


text:
Dafydd Wigley

Dafydd Wynne Wigley, Baron Wigley, (born David Wigley; 1 April 1943) is a Welsh politician who served as the leader of Plaid Cymru from 1981 to 1984 and again from 1991 to 2000. He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Caernarfon from 1974 to 2001 and as the Member of the Welsh Assembly for Caernarfon from 1999 to 2003. In 2010, Wigley was granted life peerage, taking his seat in the House of Lords in 2011.

Early life
Wigley was born in Derby, England, the only child of Welsh parents Elfyn Edward Wigley and Myfanwy Batterbee. He attended Caernarfon grammar school and Rydal School before going on to the Victoria University of Manchester.

Before becoming a Plaid Cymru MP for Caernarfon, Wigley worked for Ford Motor Company, Mars and Hoover.

Political career
In May 1972 Wigley became a councillor on the pre-1974 Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council, winning in the Park, Merthyr Tydfil ward, with the sitting Labour councillor in third place.

UK Parliament
Wigley was elected as a Plaid Cymru councillor for Merthyr Tydfil in 1972 and was then the MP for Caernarfon from 1974 until 2001, first elected at the February 1974 general election.

The election for president was seen as instrumental in deciding the future direction of Plaid Cymru. Wigley represented a moderate, pragmatic social democracy, in sharp contrast with rival candidate Dafydd Elis Thomas's socialism. In 1981 Wigley won the presidency, but Elis Thomas had greater influence over the party's ideology throughout the 1980s. In 1984 Wigley resigned from the presidency because of his children's health, but he returned in 1991 for a second term after the resignation of Elis Thomas. Wigley led Plaid until 2000. He stood down as an Member of Parliament at the 2001 General Election to concentrate on his role in the Assembly. Having served 27 years as an MP, Wigley is the longest-ever serving post-war MP from a nationalist party.

National Assembly for Wales
Wigley was the Assembly member for Caernarfon from 1999 to 2003.

House of Lords
He secured a Plaid Cymru nomination for a peerage alongside Eurfyl ap Gwilym and Janet Davies. He initially withdrew his candidature after complaining about how long the process was taking.

On 19 November 2010 it was announced that he had been granted a life peerage by the Queen, and he took his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Wigley, of Caernarfon in the County of Gwynedd on 24 January 2011, supported by fellow Plaid peer Lord Elis-Thomas and by Lord Faulkner of Worcester. He made his maiden speech on 27 January during a debate on tourism. Having been one of the first MPs to take the House of Commons oath of allegiance in the Welsh language in 1974, he took the oath of allegiance in Welsh on entering the Lords.

In 2024, Wigley criticised the Senedd Reform Bill due to the introduction of a closed list PR system for elections to the Senedd.

Personal life
He married the Welsh harpist Elinor Bennett. The couple had four children, son Hywel Wigley and daughter Eluned Wigley as well as two sons, Alun and Geraint, who died of a genetic illness. His sons' condition influenced the direction of his career, and he took a strong interest in the affairs of disabled people, being vice-chairman of the Parliamentary all-party disablement group, vice-president of Disability Wales, vice-president of Mencap (Wales), former president of the Spastics' Society of Wales and sponsor of the Disabled Persons Act in 1981. In 2003 Wigley became Pro-Chancellor of the University of Wales.

Awards
In 2008, Wigley was awarded an Honorary Chair in Business at Bangor University.

title: Dafydd Wigley


text:
Henry McLeish

Henry Baird McLeish (born 15 June 1948) is a Scottish politician, author, academic and former professional footballer who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2000 to 2001. With a term of 1 year, 12 days, he is the shortest serving holder of that office. He served as the Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland from 2000 to 2001.

Born and raised into a Labour supporting coal mining family in Fife, McLeish dropped out of Buckhaven High School at the age of fifteen to pursue a professional career in football. Playing wing half, he was first signed for Leeds United F.C., but after experiencing homesickness, McLeish returned to his native of Fife to play for East Fife F.C.. Making more than 108 appearances, he was one of the youngest ever players to play in Scottish professional football. McLeish's career was cut short after an injury and he returned to education, studying at Heriot-Watt University.

McLeish joined the Labour Party in 1970 and was later elected to the Fife Regional Council, where he served as the council's leader from 1982 to 1987. After several unsuccessful attempts to be elected to the British House of Commons, McLeish was successful in the 1987 general election, when he was elected as member of parliament for Central Fife. He served successively in Labour's opposition benches for ten years, before being appointed minister of state for Scotland under Prime Minister Tony Blair following the party's landslide victory in the 1997 election. McLeish served as Donald Dewar's 'right-hand man' in the Scottish Office and was instrumental in assisting Dewar with the creation of the Scotland Act which established the Scottish Parliament. In the first election to the parliament in 1999, he was elected as a member of the Scottish Parliament for the Central Fife constituency. Following the appointment as Dewar as the inaugural first minister of Scotland, he served in the first Scottish Executive as the minister for enterprise and lifelong learning from 1999 to 2000.

Dewar died in office of a brain haemorrhage on 11 October 2000, which triggered a leadership contest within the Labour Party to find a successor, with McLeish declaring his candidacy. He led a successful and short campaign after defeating finance minister Jack McConnell. McLeish was sworn into office as first minister of Scotland on 26 October 2000. He oversaw the implementation of the McCrone Agreement for teachers in Scotland and strongly advocated free personal care for the elderly scheme. His tenure as first minister was short, as he resigned the following year following a financial scandal referred to as "Officegate"; the first major scandal the Scottish Parliament had faced since its reincarnation two years earlier. He was succeeded by McConnell, who he had beaten in the previous leadership election. McLeish sat as a backbencher, before stepping down as an MSP at the 2003 election.

Since leaving office, McLeish has remained politically active and has written several books. In 2007, he was appointed to the Scottish Broadcasting Commission and the following year he chaired the Scottish Prisons Commission. In the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, he campaigned in favour of remaining in the UK. However, following the Brexit referendum, McLeish stated he would back another Scottish independence referendum if Scotland was taken out of the EU against its wishes.

Early life and education
Henry Baird McLeish was born at 50 Morar Street in Methil, Fife, on 15 June 1948, to Harry McLeish (1923-2009) and Mary Slaven Baird (1925-1985). Born into a "strong Christian socialist influence" household in central Fife, where his father and grandfather worked as coal miners for a private company, McLeish's grandmother was a member of the Labour and Co-operative Party for seventy years. He was named after his maternal grandfather. McLeish grew up on Morar Street, before moving to Institution Row, a miner community, when he was two or three. The family moved to a new housing estate for mineworkers in the old village of Kennoway, where his younger brother Ronald was born.

McLeish was educated at the Buckhaven High School, where he became involved with the school's football team. He met his childhood sweetheart while attending the school, Margaret Drysdale, and they married in 1968. While a pupil at the school, he was "too concerned with football", having been told by his headmaster he had no future in education.

McLeish returned to education following his injury, studying at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh from 1968 to 1973. He graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Town Planning. After graduating, McLeish worked as a research officer at Edinburgh Corporation's department of social work from 1973 to 1974, then as a planning officer for Fife County Council from 1974 to 1975 and Dunfermline District Council from 1975 to 1987. He also worked as a part-time lecturer and tutor at Heriot-Watt University from 1973 to 1986.

Professional football career
In 1963, McLeish left school at the age of 15 to become a professional football player. His rector wrote on his school report card: "I am glad the boy is a good footballer as he has no future in education." He was first signed with Leeds United, however, after experiencing homesickness, he returned to Scotland to play for East Fife, where he made 108 appearances. He played wing-half and was one of the youngest ever players to play in Scottish professional football. His first game for East Fife was at Hampden Park against the Glasgow team, Queen's Park.

At the age of 18, McLeish trialled for a Scotland youth national team, playing against a group of footballers from Motherwell, but they lost 5–2. The Daily Record reported on the match and stated McLeish was the only young Scot to impress. He was later selected for the Scotland team to play in the World Youth Cup, hosted by Yugoslavia. McLeish also played for junior football clubs; St Andrews United and Glenrothes Juniors. His footballing career was cut short by a leg injury, and he returned to education.

Entry into local government; 1970–1987
McLeish joined the Scottish Labour Party in 1970 and he became chairman of the Young Socialists. He first contested in an election for the Glenwood ward in Glenrothes but he was beaten by the sitting Scottish Conservative councillor. He began his political career on the Kirkcaldy District Council from 1974 to 1977, serving as the council's planning committee chairman. He later served on the Fife Regional Council 1978 to 1987 and served as the as leader of Fife Regional Council from 1982. As the council leader, he implemented a "municipal socialist" manifesto, proposing free bus passes and TV licences for pensioners.

At the 1979 UK general election, he ran for the East Fife constituency for the British House of Commons. McLeish was unsuccessful, having been placed third, behind the Conservatives' Barry Henderson and the Liberals' Menzies Campbell. In 1981, he began to challenge Willie Hamilton in the Central Fife constituency. Hamilton was a right-wing Labour MP known nationally for his anti-monarchy views. He gave up his attempts to retain his candidacy, allowing McLeish to run in the 1987 election.

Labour in opposition; 1987–1997
The Labour Party failed to defeat Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party in the 1987 election and McLeish served in several shadow spokesman portfolios, including education and employment from 1988 to 1989 and employment and training from 1989 to 1992. Despite the end of Thatcher's eleven-year tenure, Labour failed again to defeat the incumbent Conservatives, returning to opposition. McLeish served as shadow minister for the Scottish Office from 1992 to 1994.

In 1994, following Tony Blair's election as Leader of the Labour Party, McLeish served successively as the shadow minister for transport from 1994 to 1995, shadow minister for health from 1995 to 1996, and shadow minister for social security from 1996 to 1997.

1997 Scottish devolution referendum
At the 1997 UK general election, McLeish served as Labour's election campaign director for Scotland. In the election, Labour defeated the Conservatives in a landslide victory. He was appointed by Blair as the Minister of State for Scotland, with responsibility for home affairs and devolution. McLeish worked alongside Donald Dewar on the Scotland Act 1998, which established the Scottish Parliament.

As Dewar's right-hand man in Westminster, McLeish helped secure devolution for Scotland and manoeuvre the Scotland Act through the Westminster Parliament.

Dewar administration; 1999–2000
After the creation of the Scottish Parliament in May 1999, McLeish was elected as MSP for Fife Central and became Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning.

2000 Labour leadership bid
On 11 October 2000, Dewar died of a brain haemorrhage following a fall outside Bute House the previous day. Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace served as the acting First Minister, until the election of a new leader of Scottish Labour was held after Dewar's funeral. On 19 October, McLeish launched his bid to be the next leader of the Scottish Labour Party, with Jack McConnell later announcing his bid.

The ballot was held amongst a restricted electorate of Labour MSPs and members of Scottish Labour's national executive, because there was insufficient time for a full election to be held. McLeish defeated his rival Jack McConnell by 44 votes to 36 in the race to become the second first minister.

First Minister of Scotland (2000–2001)
McLeish was officially sworn into office as first minister of Scotland on 27 October 2000 at the Court of Session in Edinburgh after receiving the Royal Warrant of Appointment by Queen Elizabeth II. The following day, he formed his administration, which was a continuation of the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition.

Governmental record
Professor John Curtice, a prominent political analyst, commented that McLeish would not have the "kind of authority" that Donald Dewar enjoyed. He travelled widely, particularly in the United States. He managed several task forces designed to improve the competitiveness of Scottish industry, especially the PILOT project for Scottish oil and gas supply chains.

He was embarrassed when an open microphone recorded him with Helen Liddell in a television studio, describing Scottish Secretary John Reid as "a patronising bastard" and said of his colleague, Brian Wilson, "Brian is supposed to be in charge of Africa but he spends most of his time in bloody Dublin. He is a liability".

Acts of Parliament
Whilst in government serving as first minister, McLeish oversaw and implemented the free personal care for the elderly scheme as well as the implementation of the McCrone Agreement for education teachers in Scotland.

Officegate and resignation
McLeish resigned as first minister in November 2001, amid a scandal involving allegations he sub-let part of his tax-subsidised Westminster constituency office without it having been registered in the register of interests kept in the Parliamentary office.

The press called the affair Officegate. Though McLeish could not have personally benefited financially from the oversight, he undertook to repay the £36,000 rental income, and resigned to allow Scottish Labour a clean break to prepare for the 2003 Scottish Parliament election. McLeish did not seek re-election.

Post-premiership
Since leaving mainstream politics, McLeish has lectured widely in the United States, particularly at the United States Air Force Academy and the University of Arkansas, where he holds a visiting professorship shared between the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and the University of Arkansas School of Law. He is considered an expert on European-American relations and on the European Union.

In August 2007, he was appointed to the Scottish Broadcasting Commission, established by the Scottish Government. He also chaired the Scottish Prisons Commission, which produced a report into sentencing and the criminal justice system in 2008 entitled "Scotland's Choice". McLeish concluded a "major report" on the state of football in Scotland, which had been commissioned by the Scottish Football Association, in April 2010.

McLeish claimed that Scottish football was "underachieving, under performing and under funded" at a press conference to unveil the report.

Public image and legacy
McLeish’s close working relationship with inaugural first minister Donald Dewar meant that, at the time of Dewar’s death, McLeish was regarded by many in the Press as Dewar’s continuity candidate. A 2000 feature in The Economist described him variably as both “Labour’s next most experienced politician” and “too keen to be his [Dewar’s] deputy for Mr Dewar’s liking”.

The same article portrayed McLeish as having a distant relationship with Labour’s leader in London, Tony Blair, but with a reputation for being a “moderniser” given his work alongside Donald Dewar in securing devolution. His work on the foundational Devolution Bill secured him the nickname of “Mr. Devolution” in parliament.

In contrast to “Dewar’s gregariousness”, however, The Economist described McLeish as “a bit of a loner” within the Scottish Parliament, “keeping his head down when there is trouble”. The Scotsman described him as a “hard grafter”, commenting in length on his former career as a footballer.

Despite denying intentional wrongdoing, McLeish’s short tenure and rapid departure from office amid scandal likely dampened his public legacy. His successor, Jack McConnell, appeared keen “to remove the influence of … Henry McLeish” from the Scottish Government by sacking most of his ministerial appointees within days of entering office.

Since resigning as an MSP in 2003, McLeish has kept an active profile within Scotland’s print media, writing on politics for The Scotsman, The Herald, and The National.

Scottish devolution
As a strong devolutionist, he was one of the original signatories of the claim of right at the inaugural meeting of the 1989 Scottish constitutional convention which paved the way for devolution.

Scottish nationalism
In the run up to the referendum on Scottish independence on 18 September 2014, there was much media and public speculation towards whether McLeish backed a "No" vote to remain within the United Kingdom, or whether he supported a "Yes" vote in order to create an independent separate sovereign Scotland.

Speculation from the public came from media articles in which McLeish was reported to be talking negatively about the prospect of a "No" vote to remain within the union, but was later reported as stating it would be "near impossible" to vote Yes in the referendum.

Following the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership, in which the majority of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, but the majority of the Scottish electorate voted to remain in the EU, McLeish has since claimed that he would support and campaign for an independent Scottish sovereign state and campaign for it to be a fully functioning member and participate fully within the European Union despite Brexit. In September 2021, he reiterated that he would support independence if the union was not reformed.

Titles and achievements
McLeish also holds the following positions and titles:

 * Privy Counsellor
 * Hartman Hotz visiting professor in law and the liberal arts, jointly in the Fulbright College and Law School, University of Arkansas
 * Visiting professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver
 * Visiting lecturer at the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado
 * Honorary Fellow at the College of Humanities and Social Science at Edinburgh University
 * Honorary Fellow at the Cambridge Land Institute, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University
 * Adviser, Consultant and Facilitator to the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and the European Monitoring Centre for Change, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
 * Adviser and Consultant to the LEED Programme of the OECD in Paris, France, including visits to Austria, Italy, and Mexico
 * Consultant, in partnership with Jeremy Harrison, Cambridge (Public Value Partnership, working on new project development and evaluation of existing projects in the community and voluntary sector)

Authored books

 * Scotland First: Truth and Consequences (2004)
 * Global Scots: Voices from Afar (with Kenny MacAskill) (2005) (published in the United Kingdom as Global Scots: Making It in the Modern World)
 * Wherever the Saltire Flies (with Kenny MacAskill) (2006)
 * Scotland: The Road Divides (with Tom Brown) (2007)
 * Scotland: A Suitable Case for Treatment (with Tom Brown) (2009)
 * Scotland The Growing Divide: Old Nation, New Ideas (with Tom Brown) (2012)
 * Rethinking our Politics: The political and constitutional future of Scotland and the UK (2014)
 * Citizens United: Taking Back Control in Turbulent Times – Viewpoints (2017)
 * Scottish Football: Reviving the Beautiful Game (2018)
 * People, Politics, Parliament: The Settled Will of the Scottish People (2022)

Personal life
McLeish has four children. His first wife Margaret Drysdale, whom he had two children with, died in 1995 of stomach cancer. In 1998, he married Julie Fulton, a social worker for Fife Council. They divorced in 2011 and the following year he married Karyn Nicholson.

title: Henry McLeish


text:
Rancho Cucamonga

Rancho Cucamongo was a 13045 acre Mexican land grant in present-day San Bernardino County, California, given in 1839 to the dedicated soldier, smuggler and politician Tiburcio Tapia by Mexican governor Juan Bautista Alvarado. The grant formed parts of present-day California cities Rancho Cucamonga and Upland. It extended easterly from San Antonio Creek to what is now Hermosa Avenue, and from today's Eighth Street to the mountains.

History
The Mission San Gabriel established the Rancho Cucamonga as a site for grazing their cattle. In 1839, the rancho was granted by the Mexican governor of California to Tiburcio Tapia, a wealthy Los Angeles merchant. Tapia transferred his cattle to Cucamonga and built a fort-like adobe house on Red Hill. The Rancho was inherited by Tapia's daughter, Maria Merced Tapia de Prudhomme, and her husband Leon Victor Prudhomme.

With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican–American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Cucamonga was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was patented to Leon V. Prudhomme in 1872.

Rancho Cucamonga was sold in 1858 to John Rains. Rains in 1856 married Maria Merced Williams, the daughter of Rancho Santa Ana del Chino owner Isaac Williams and granddaughter of Antonio Maria Lugo, owner of Rancho San Bernardino. Maria was thus a wealthy heiress, and Rains invested in three ranchos and the Bella Union Hotel in Los Angeles. John Rains was murdered on November 17, 1862. Three men including Tomas Procopio Bustamante were accused but only Manuel Ceredel was caught. Ceredel claimed he, Precopio and four others were paid $500 by Ramon Carrillo, another ranchero and political opponent, to kill Rains. Ceradel was convicted of attempting to murder the sheriff's deputy who arrested him and was sentenced to 10 years in San Quentin. As the sheriff took Ceredel on a boat to San Francisco, a group of vigilantes lynched Ceredel. Carrillo was examined in court twice and was released, no evidence having been found against him. Ramon Carrillo always maintained his innocence of the crime, but he was shot in the back from ambush and killed on the Los Angeles road west of Cucamonga on May 21, 1864, in another unsolved murder.

Maria Merced married José Carrillo in 1864. She had nine children in all: five with Rains, and four with Carrillo. Isaias W. Hellman, a Los Angeles banker, and a San Francisco business syndicate acquired the 13045 acre Rancho Cucamonga at a sheriff's sale in 1871. Hellman and his partners, which included former Governor John Downey, subdivided the land. Hellman continued to make port and sweet Angelica wine from Cucamonga's fabled vineyard. Tapia had first planted grapes in 1839 and Rains had increased the vineyard to 150 acre in 1859.

In 1882, George Chaffey, a Canadian from the province of Ontario, purchased 8000 acre of the Rancho Cucamonga land for $90,000. Chaffey established an irrigation colony which he named Ontario, after his homeland of Ontario, Canada. The Ontario colony later became the city of Ontario, incorporated in 1891. The northern part of Chaffey's Ontario colony became the city of Upland, incorporated in 1906.

In 1977 three unincorporated communities which had emerged on the old ranch lands—Alta Loma, Cucamonga and Etiwanda—became the city of Rancho Cucamonga.

Historic sites

 * Chinatown House
 * John Rains House (National Register of Historic Places #73-428)
 * Tapia Adobe (California Historical Landmark #360)
 * Rancho Cucamonga Marker is at the Cucamonga Winery (California Historical Landmark #490)

Markers
Marker at Cucamonga Winery site reads:
 * Established by Tiburcio Tapia, to whom the Cucamonga Rancho was granted March 3, 1839, by Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado of Mexico.

title: Rancho Cucamonga


text:
The Deserted Village

The Deserted Village is a poem by Oliver Goldsmith published in 1770. It is a work of social commentary, and condemns rural depopulation and the pursuit of excessive wealth.

The poem is written in heroic couplets, and describes the decline of a village and the emigration of many of its residents to America. In the poem, Goldsmith criticises rural depopulation, the moral corruption found in towns, consumerism, enclosure, landscape gardening, avarice, and the pursuit of wealth from international trade. The poem employs, in the words of one critic, "deliberately precise obscurity", and does not reveal the reason why the village has been deserted. The poem was very popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but also provoked critical responses, including from other poets such as George Crabbe. References to the poem, and particularly its ominous "Ill fares the land" warning, have appeared in a number of other contexts.

Background

Goldsmith grew up in the hamlet of Lissoy in Ireland. In the 1760s, he travelled extensively around England, visiting many small settlements at a time when the enclosure movement was at its height.

The poem is dedicated to the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, with whom Goldsmith was a close friend and founding member, along with Samuel Johnson, of a dining society called The Club. Reynolds had helped to promote Goldsmith's play The Good-Natur'd Man to the actor and theatre manager David Garrick, and had facilitated Goldsmith's appointment as the historian of the Royal Academy.

The Deserted Village condemns rural depopulation and the indulgence of the rich. This was a subject that Goldsmith had addressed in his earlier poem The Traveller; or a Prospect of Society (1764), which also condemned the corrupting influence of extreme wealth. Goldsmith also set out his ideas about rural depopulation in an essay entitled "The Revolution in Low Life", published in Lloyd's Evening Post in 1762.

There is no single place which has been identified as the village of the poem's title. Although some contend that the location of the poem's deserted village is unknown, others note that Auburn village close to Athlone is the likely subject of Goldsmith's poem. Travel-guide authors Samuel Carter Hall and Anna Hall write in their 1853 Hand-books for Ireland: The West and Connamara that the British tourist should disembark from their train at Athlone's Moate Station and "make a pilgrimage to the renowned village of Auburn" located six miles from Moate Station (Hall & Hall, 1853, pp. 4–5). The Halls explain that although Goldsmith was born in the village of Pallas (also known as Pallice or Pallasmore), his father was soon appointed to the Kilkenny-West Rectory, and he therefore moved his family (circa 1730) to the village of Auburn, also known as Lissoy and, to the locals, as "The Pigeons" (ibid.). Lissoy has "now and for nearly a century [been] known as Auburn" and is "so marked on the maps" (ibid.). For a similar claim regarding Auburn in County Westmeath as the Auburn of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, see J. Stirling Coyne and N.P. Willis's The Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland published c. 1841 (Vol. 1, Chap. 4). Others speculate merely that "the description may have been influenced by Goldsmith's memory of his childhood in rural Ireland, and his travels around England."

While personal references in the poem give the impression of referring to the village in which Goldsmith grew up, the poem has also been associated with Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire. In "The Revolution in Low Life", Goldsmith had condemned the destruction of a village within 50 mi of London in order to construct a fashionable landscape garden. Goldsmith reported that he had personally witnessed this scene in 1761. In the same year, Nuneham Courtenay was removed to make way for Nuneham Park. Its owner—Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt—moved the village 1.5 mi away. There are a number of other concordances between Nuneham Courtenay's destruction and the contents of The Deserted Village. At Nuneham Courtenay, only an old woman was allowed to remain living in her house—Goldsmith's poem features an old woman who returns to the village, and she is depicted on the title page of the first edition. The position of both villages, on a hill near a river, was similar, and both had parsons who enjoyed gardening.

However, Robert Seitz has argued that while "The Revolution in Low Life" greatly strengthens the case for identifying the deserted village as English, Goldsmith saw in this unnamed village "only what he wished to see", using it to fit a set of political and social ideas which were "made up largely of elements absorbed in Ireland".

Synopsis

The poem opens with a description of a village named Auburn, written in the past tense.

 * Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain;
 * Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
 * Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
 * And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed (lines 1–4).

The poem then moves on to describe the village in its current state, reporting that it has been abandoned by its residents with its buildings ruined.

 * Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
 * And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
 * And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
 * Far, far away thy children leave the land
 * Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
 * Where wealth accumulates, and men decay (lines 47–52)

After nostalgic descriptions of Auburn's parson, schoolmaster and alehouse, Goldsmith makes a direct attack on the usurpation of agricultural land by the wealthy:

 * ... The man of wealth and pride
 * Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
 * Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
 * Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds:
 * The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
 * Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth (lines 275–300)

The poem later condemns the luxury and corruption of the city, and describes the fate of a country girl who moved there:

 * Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
 * She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed,
 * Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;
 * Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
 * Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn:
 * Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
 * Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
 * And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
 * With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
 * When idly first, ambitious of the town,
 * She left her wheel and robes of country brown. (Lines 326–36)

Goldsmith then states that the residents of Auburn have not moved to the city, but have emigrated overseas. He describes these foreign lands as follows:

 * Far different there from all that charmed before
 * The various terrors of that horrid shore;
 * Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
 * And fiercely shed intolerable day (lines 345–8)

The poem mentions "wild Altama", perhaps a reference to the "Altamaha River" in Georgia, an American colony founded by James Oglethorpe to receive paupers and criminals from Britain. As the poem nears its end, Goldsmith gives a warning, before reporting that even Poetry herself has fled abroad:

 * Even now the devastation is begun,
 * And half the business of destruction done;
 * Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
 * I see the rural virtues leave the land.
 * Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail (lines 395–9)

The poem ends with the hope that Poetry can help those who have been exiled:

 * Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
 * Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
 * Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain,
 * Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
 * Teach him, that states of native strength possest,
 * Tho' very poor, may still be very blest;
 * That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
 * As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
 * While self-dependent power can time defy,
 * As rocks resist the billows and the sky. (Lines 421–30)

Genre, prosody and influences
The poem has 430 lines, divided into heroic couplets. This form features an "AABBCC..." rhyme scheme, with ten-syllable lines written in iambic pentameter. It is an example of georgic and pastoral poetry. The poem is also an example of Augustan verse. In its use of a balanced account of Auburn in its inhabited and deserted states, and in its employment of an authorly persona within the poem, it conforms to contemporary neoclassical conventions.

Goldsmith was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and had read Latin poetry since childhood. He would, therefore, have been aware of the criticisms made by classical writers such as Juvenal and Pliny of the displacement of the rural poor by the rich. Furthermore, in the eighteenth century the decline of the Roman Empire was attributed to the growth of luxury and pride in Rome. Goldsmith, in emphasising the danger that England faced from its increase in wealth, was drawing an obvious parallel. Ricardo Quintana has argued that the poem takes Virgil's first Eclogue as its model.

Quintana has also highlighted the way that the poem presents a series of contrasts. In the early parts of the poem, old "Sweet Auburn" and the deserted village are contrasted. Later in the poem, Quintana argues, Goldsmith places nature and art, frugality and luxury, "national vigor and national corruption", and the country and the city, in opposition.

Social commentary
The Deserted Village condemns rural depopulation, the enclosure of common land, the creation of landscape gardens and the pursuit of excessive wealth. In Goldsmith's vision, wealth does not necessarily bring either prosperity or happiness. Indeed, it can be dangerous to the maintenance of British liberties and displaces traditional community. In making this argument, some have regarded Goldsmith not as a political radical, but as a socially-concerned "conservative". Indeed, his emphasis on the corrupting effects of luxury fit closely with discourses associated with Tory writers of the time.

Sebastian Mitchell has argued that Goldsmith employs "deliberately precise obscurity" in the poem, concealing the reason for the village's demise. While this may detract from the authority of Goldsmith's social critique, it also allows readers to project their own concerns onto the poem. Bell comments that while Goldsmith criticises enclosure in an indirect manner, he does not attribute Auburn's decline to it. However, Bell also argues that commerce is clearly the "arch-villain of the piece", and it is the riches that a small minority have accumulated from international trade that allow rural people to be displaced from their lands so that country estates can be created. Furthermore, Alfred Lutz has commented that Goldsmith's attacks on landscape gardening have a wider political significance, because enclosure's defenders sometimes compared enclosed fields to gardens.

Mitchell also argues that criticism which focuses solely on the poem's historical accuracy misses its wider commentary on late-eighteenth-century social issues, particularly the question of "urban estrangement".

Publication history

The poem was completed in 1769, and was first published in May 1770. Appearing in quarto format, five further editions were released in the same year.

It was published in eleven editions in the United States by the end of the century.

Illustrations and other artwork
The title page of the first edition featured an engraving by Isaac Taylor. The illustration depicts the old woman mentioned in the poem, standing in front of the deserted village. In the background a ship departs, presumably for America.

Thomas Bewick and his school also produced several depictions of scenes from The Deserted Village, some of which occurred as illustrations of published versions of the poem or Goldsmith's works. In 1794, Bewick produced woodcuts to illustrate a volume entitled The Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith. In the following year, Bewick and his brother John Bewick (1760-1795) again engraved illustrations for a volume entitled Poems by Goldsmith and Parnell. The magnitude of this project meant that Bewick enlisted several collaborators to produce the illustrations.

Bewick also depicted scenes from The Deserted Village which appeared in other places. An engraving of his edition of Fables of Aesop, published in 1818, features a scene depicting a quotation from the poem carved into a rock.

The painter Francis Wheatley submitted two paintings to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1800, both of which depicted scenes from The Deserted Village. The paintings were copied by an engraver, and appeared in an edition of Goldsmith's poetry published in the same year by F. J. du Roveray.

Eighteenth-century reception

Alfred Lutz has argued that the poem generated two different types of reception. Firstly, some readers admired Goldsmith's economic and social arguments, or at least reflected upon them in their own writings. Political radicals, such as Thomas Spence and John Thelwall quoted The Deserted Village in their own works, as did a number of other writers. Secondly, readers and critics ignored the political content of the poem, focussing instead on Goldsmith's idyllic descriptions of Auburn. This second type of reading was the most common. Sebastian Mitchell states that some modern critics have seen the poem as appearing at a turning point in British culture, when public social and political opinions, and private emotional dispositions, diverged. With the publication of texts such as Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776) shortly after The Deserted Village, political and economic discussion increasingly became the preserve not of poetry, but of a "scientific" version of political economy.

In the United States, a different reading occurred—while the English Auburn may have been deserted, the new world offered opportunities for the recreation of Goldsmith's idyll.

Early critics also questioned the validity of Goldsmith's argument about rural depopulation and decline. In 1770, for instance, Thomas Comber argued that the population of rural England was not decreasing, and that enclosure could increase farmers' demand for labourers. An early review in The Critical Review also defended the value of England's increase in wealth, and questioned whether rural depopulation had become an important problem. Modern economic historians have supported Comber's comments about depopulation. George Crabbe's poem The Village (1783) was written as a riposte to what its author saw as the excessive sentimentality of Goldsmith's verse. In his poem, Crabbe describes the hardships of the rural poor, in a way that Goldsmith did not. Furthermore, Crabbe's poem encourages the interpretation of Goldsmith's bucolic depiction of old "sweet Auburn" in The Deserted Village as being a representation of the status quo in 1770, rather than a depiction of an idealised past through which current moral decline can be highlighted. The Deserted Village is, in this interpretation, "depoliticised"—an act that was reinforced by nineteenth-century interpretations produced by Thomas Babington Macaulay and two of Goldsmith's biographers.

The poem also generated other responses in verse. While Crabbe emphasised the misery and poverty of rural life, Robert Bloomfield's The Farmer's Boy (1800) returned to the theme of the rural idyll, but without Goldsmith or Crabbe's political criticism. The Deserted Village was a major influence on Bloomfield, as was Alexander Pope's pastoral poetry.

Later reception
The poem's reception in the Victorian era was largely positive. The Irish playwright Edmund Falconer (c. 1814–1879) adapted the work to suit as opera libretto for the three-act opera of the same name (1880) by John William Glover (1815–1899).

Cultural references
The poem has influenced the production of several notable cultural works. In 1825, Goldsmith's great-nephew—also called Oliver Goldsmith—wrote a response to his relative's poem, entitled The Rising Village.

The first half of line 51 from the poem ("Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey") has provided a title to several books and films, including Carey McWilliams's Ill Fares the Land: Migrants and Migratory Labor in the United States (1942) and Ill Fares the Land (2010) by Tony Judt.

A single line from The Deserted Village is inscribed on the plinth of a statue of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in Saxon Dress. The marble original with plinth is in the Royal Collection, and a copy of the sculpture is in the National Portrait Gallery in London. The words on the plinth are "ALLURED TO BRIGHTER WORLDS, AND LED THE WAY".

In Ireland the village described in the poem is thought to be Glasson village, near Athlone. Signage around the village points out the association with Oliver Goldsmith. In American popular culture, and specifically that of Alabama, the poem's first line "Sweet Auburn, Loveliest village of the plain" is the basis for the term "Auburn Plainsman/Plainsmen" which is used to refer to an Auburn University student and is also the source for the name of the University student Newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman. Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown and Cambridge, Massachusetts, is also named after the village in the poem.

On The Alan Parsons Project's 1984 album Ammonia Avenue, the title track contains the lyrics "And those who came at first to scoff, remained behind to pray, And those who came at first to scoff, remained behind to pray", derived (apparently) from Goldsmith's line "And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray."

Books

 * John A. Dussinger, 'Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?–1774)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
 * W. Roberts, F. Wheatley, R. A., his life and works (London: Otto Limited, 1910).
 * Robin Taylor Gilbert, 'Taylor, Isaac (1730–1807)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
 * Jenny Uglow, Nature's Engraver: a Life of Thomas Bewick (London: Faber & Faber, 2006).

title: The Deserted Village


text:
William Ross

William Ross may refer to:

Nobility

 * William I, Earl of Ross (died 1274), ruler of the province of Ross in northern Scotland
 * William II, Earl of Ross (died c. 1323), ruler of the province of Ross in northern Scotland
 * William Ross, 8th Lord Ross (died 1640), Scottish nobleman
 * William Ross, 10th Lord Ross (died 1656), Scottish nobleman
 * William Ross, 12th Lord Ross (died 1738), Scottish nobleman, soldier and politician
 * William Ross, 14th Lord Ross (died 1754), Scottish nobleman

Politics

 * William Ross (speaker) (died 1830), New York politician, Speaker of the State Assembly 1814
 * William H. H. Ross (1814–1887), American politician and former governor of Delaware
 * William Ross (Canadian politician) (1824–1912), merchant, ship builder and politician in Nova Scotia, Canada
 * William Ross (Ontario politician) (1854–1937), merchant and politician in Ontario, Canada
 * William Benjamin Ross (1855–1929), Canadian politician, lawyer and businessman
 * William Roderick Ross (1869–1928), lawyer and politician in British Columbia, Canada
 * William Donald Ross (1869–1947), financier, banker and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
 * William B. Ross (1873–1924), Governor of Wyoming
 * William Henry Ross (1886–1943), provincial level politician from Alberta, Canada
 * Bill Ross (Australian politician) (1888–1966), member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
 * William Gladstone Ross (1889–1948), lawyer, judge and politician in Saskatchewan, Canada
 * Willie Ross, Baron Ross of Marnock (1911–1988), Secretary of State for Scotland in the 1960s
 * William Cecil Ross (1911–1998), leader of the (communist) Labour Progressive Party of Manitoba in 1945
 * William Ross (Unionist politician) (born 1936), Ulster Unionist Party member of Parliament until 2001

Sports

 * William Ross (cricketer) (fl. 1860), Australian cricketer
 * William Ross (footballer, born 1874) (1874–?), English professional footballer active in the 1890s
 * William Ross (baseball) (1893–1964), American Negro leagues baseball player
 * William Ross (rower) (1900–1992), Canadian Olympic rower
 * William Alexander Ross (1913–1942), Scottish rugby player
 * William Ross (footballer, born 1921) (1921–1995), Scottish footballer
 * William Ross (water polo) (1928–2021), US water polo player who competed in the 1956 Summer Olympics
 * Bill Ross (footballer) (born 1944), Australian rules footballer
 * Bill Ross (rugby union) (born 1956), Australian rugby union player
 * Eric Ross (William Eric Ross, born 1944), Northern Irish footballer

Other people

 * William Ross (poet) (1762–1790/91), Scottish Gaelic poet
 * William Charles Ross (1794–1860), British artist
 * William P. Ross (1820–1891), Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation
 * William Murray Ross (1825–1904), entrepreneur in Melbourne
 * William Stewart Ross (1844–1906), Scottish writer and publisher
 * W. D. Ross (William David Ross, 1877–1971), British philosopher
 * William Ross (theatrical producer) (1915–1994), State Managers Association, Actors' Equity Association
 * William Ross (actor) (1923–2014), Tokyo-based American actor, voice actor, voice director and editor, and the founder of Frontier Enterprises
 * William Ross (composer) (born 1948), soundtrack composer

Fictional

 * William Ross (Star Trek), a character in Star Trek

title: William Ross