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Thomas Harrison (architect)

Thomas Harrison (7 August (baptised) 1744 – 29 March 1829) was an English architect and bridge engineer who trained in Rome, where he studied classical architecture. Returning to England, he won the competition in 1782 for the design of Skerton Bridge in Lancaster. After moving to Lancaster he worked on local buildings, received commissions for further bridges, and designed country houses in Scotland. In 1786 Harrison was asked to design new buildings within the grounds of Lancaster and Chester castles, projects that occupied him, together with other works, until 1815. On both sites he created accommodation for prisoners, law courts, and a shire hall, while working on various other public buildings, gentlemen's clubs, churches, houses, and monuments elsewhere. His final major commission was for the design of Grosvenor Bridge in Chester.

Some of Harrison's designs, including his buildings at Lancaster Castle, were Gothic in style, but most were Neoclassical, particularly those at Chester Castle. He was regarded at the time, and since, as a major influence in the emergence of the Greek Revival in British architecture. A bridge he designed at the start of his career, and another towards the end of his career, incorporated innovative features; Skerton Bridge was the first substantial bridge in England to have a flat roadway, and the Grosvenor Bridge was the longest single-arched masonry bridge in the world at the time of its construction. Many of Harrison's structures have survived, most of them now designated by English Heritage as listed buildings. Despite his work being nationally admired he spent his entire career in northwest England, visiting London only occasionally; most of his buildings were in Lancashire, Cheshire, and the nearby counties.

Early life and training
Thomas Harrison was born in Richmond, Yorkshire, England, the son of a joiner, also named Thomas. His precise date of birth is not known, but it is likely that he was baptised on 7 August 1744. Little is known about his early life, other than he attended Richmond Grammar School, and it is presumed that he worked with his father. In 1769 he was sponsored by a local landowner, Sir Lawrence Dundas of Aske Hall, to join George Cuitt (who later became a landscape painter) to study in Rome. Here he studied at the Accademia di San Luca, and during his seven years in Rome, amongst other activities, made drawings of Roman structures, including temples and Trajan's Column. In 1770 Harrison submitted a design to Pope Clement XIV for converting the Vatican Cortile del Belvedere into a museum for antique statues. This was "favourably received but not in the end adopted". Three years later he entered the Accademia's competition to re-plan the Piazza del Popolo. His design was unsuccessful, but it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1777. Following the failure of this design to be accepted, he petitioned the pope, and was awarded gold and silver medals, and made Accademico di Merito. He was then commissioned by the pope to alter the sacristy of St Peter's, but the pope died before the work started. Harrison returned to England in 1776, probably via France, as he made drawings of buildings in Nîmes and Paris. He produced designs for a bridge and a road in London, which were not accepted, and he returned to Richmond in 1778.

Bridges
The major works executed by Harrison at the start and end of his career were bridges: Skerton Bridge in Lancaster and Grosvenor Bridge in Chester, both of which incorporated innovative features. In 1782 he won the first prize in a competition to design a bridge to cross the River Lune at Lancaster and to replace a medieval bridge. After some amendments to the design, the foundation stone was laid in June 1783, and Skerton Bridge was completed in September 1787, at a cost of £14,000. The bridge was carried on five elliptical arches, and was the first in England to have a flat road surface. Harrison subsequently received further commissions for bridges, including St Mary's Bridge in Derby (1788–93), Harrington Bridge near Sawley, Derbyshire (1789–90), and Stramongate Bridge in Kendal, Cumbria (1791–94), followed by smaller bridges in Lancashire and Cheshire. He was appointed unofficially as the bridge master of Lancashire, and having carried out the duties of country surveyor for Cheshire since 1800, was officially appointed to the post in 1815. Harrison's later bridges in Cheshire included the Mersey Bridge at Warrington (1812–17), and Cranage Bridge near Holmes Chapel (1815–16). These were the only bridges he designed to be built in timber rather than in stone, and both have been replaced. They were the first bridges of their type to be built in England, and were his only bridges to be regarded as "failures". During his career, Harrison was consulted about the design of other bridges in the country. Towards the end of his career, Harrison worked on two bridges in Chester. At the time the only road crossing over the River Dee was the medieval Old Dee Bridge, which was becoming inadequate for the increasing volume of traffic. In 1825 Harrison added three new arches on the upstream side of the bridge, and built a footway that was corbeled-out, also on the upstream side. Meanwhile, negotiations had been underway for a much more substantial bridge. In 1825 an Act of Parliament was passed for the Grosvenor Bridge to be built downstream from the Old Dee Bridge. To provide access to the new bridge, properties, including a church, had to be demolished, and Harrison was involved in designing the new approach to the bridge, which was named Grosvenor Street. He also prepared three different plans for the bridge, one in iron, the others in stone; one of the stone bridges had three arches, the other a single arch spanning 200 ft. The single-arch bridge would be the longest single-arch stone bridge in the world at the time, and there were doubts about its stability. Harrison's design was supported by the engineers James Trubshaw and John Rennie, and Trubshaw made a limestone model of the bridge to confirm its stability. By this time Harrison was aged over 80, and in 1826 he resigned from the commission. Later that year the design was costed by Thomas Telford, and the town council subsequently accepted the design. Trubshaw was in charge of the construction, with Jesse Hartley as his clerk-of-works. The foundation stone was laid in 1827 by the Earl of Grosvenor (after whose family the bridge was named), and work began the following year. It was formally opened in 1832 by the future Queen Victoria, and traffic began to cross it the following year. The total cost of the bridge was just under £50,000. Harrison did not live to see it completed, as he died in 1829.

Lancaster and Chester Castles
Around the time that Harrison was involved in the construction of Skerton Bridge, he received other commissions for work in Lancaster. These included the addition of a clock tower to the Town Hall, the addition of a tower and spire to St John's Church, and the building of Bridge Houses on the east side of Skerton Bridge. In October 1786 Harrison was asked to prepare plans for substantial improvements to Lancaster Castle; in January that year he had also won the competition for major improvements to Chester Castle. He worked on both projects simultaneously for the next 30 years, and beyond that until 1815 in Chester, where he added further new buildings. In both projects he designed buildings for prisoners and prison staff, courtrooms and a Shire Hall. Both towns already had gaols, but there was a national move in the later part of the 18th century to improve them, following the campaigns by penal formers led by John Howard. Amongst these reforms were the separation of men and women, and of criminals and debtors, which were incorporated into Harrison's designs.

Lancaster
Harrison did not create an overall plan for his work on the site; a series of plans for different buildings were prepared and building works continued until 1792. The new buildings had to be placed between the existing medieval castle buildings, including the keep, towers and the gatehouse. Harrison decided to design them with Gothic motifs, such as battlements and windows with pointed heads. Construction started in 1788, and the first building to be completed was the Keeper's House, standing to the right of the gatehouse. The next substantial building to be completed was the Female Felon's Prison on the other side of the gatehouse. He designed an arcade on the south side of the keep to give some shelter to the debtors as they walked round their courtyard. He later added two storeys to provide more accommodation for debtors, and completed the Male Felon's Prison to the north of the keep. By 1794 these buildings and other improvements had cost £10,853, more than had been expected. By 1795 Harrison had moved from Lancaster to Chester, from where he continued to supervise the work on both sites. At Lancaster this work included rebuilding the Crown Court and the Shire Hall. At that time the Crown Court was held in the medieval hall of the castle, and civil cases were held in the Shire Hall in the keep. The new buildings form a symmetrical group to the west of the keep, and were completed in 1798, although the internal decoration and furnishings were not finished until some years later by Joseph Gandy. The Crown Court is a simple rectangular room, measuring about 50 ft by 30 ft high and wide. The Shire Hall has a plan of half a polygon about 80 ft in diameter. Six Gothic columns support a panelled vault covering the main part of the courtroom. Around the perimeter is an arcade, and the judge's bench has an elaborate canopy in Coade stone. The precise cost of these buildings is unknown, but in 1807 an estimate of more than £40,000 was given.

Chester
In contrast with Lancaster, Harrison was able to prepare an organised plan for the gaol, as it was to be built on a new site behind the Elizabethan Shire Hall on land sloping down to the River Dee. Also in contrast to Lancaster, the buildings were to be in Neoclassical style. The Gaoler's House would stand behind the Shire Hall, overlooking the exercise courtyards. Inside the semi-octagonal perimeter wall of the site would stand two-storey blocks to house the prisoners. The site was staked-out in November 1786, but nothing could be done until the necessary Act of Parliament was passed the following July. Work started on the prisoners' accommodation early in 1789 and on the Goaler's House in early 1792, and was completed two years later. Plans were then put in place for a new Shire Hall to replace the Elizabethan building, which was completed in 1802. The Shire Hall was another structure in which Harrison made innovations, in this case the use of Greek architectural motifs. Its façade is about 250 ft long and 25 ft high, in nineteen bays with two storeys. At its centre is a Doric-style portico with twelve columns, projecting forwards by about 10 ft. Its interior contains a semi-circular courtroom with a diameter of 80 ft. Its curved wall has a colonnade of ten Ionic columns, and on each side of the judge's bench are two similar columns. The room has a coffered semi-dome. In addition to courts, and now a gaol, Chester Castle also housed a garrison of soldiers. The forecourt of the Shire Hall formed a parade ground for the garrison, and Harrison designed two new buildings for the soldiers. On the west side of the parade ground he built an Armoury, and on the east side a matching block, with more utilitarian buildings behind, to act as the Barracks. Both of the blocks consists of a two-storey building in nine bays, the fronts of which are decorated with Ionic half-columns about 23 ft high. Harrison's final building in the complex was a monumental gateway or Propylaea at the entrance to the forecourt. This consists of a central block, with two lateral pavilions that originally served as guardhouses. The central block has a portico extending some 10 ft in front of the pavilions, with a double colonnade of four Doric monolithic columns standing 18 ft high. Above them is a triglyph frieze, and a low attic. The pavilions are lower than the central block, and decorated at their front with two Doric half-columns between pilasters. At the back the pavilions project 10 ft beyond the central block and have four Doric columns. The structure, which was built between 1813 and 1815, contains 22 monolithic columns.

Gentlemen's clubs and public buildings
The first gentlemen's club to be designed by Harrison was the Lyceum in Liverpool. This contained a newsroom, a coffee house, and new premises for the Liverpool Library. It was the first building in Liverpool to incorporate Greek motifs in its design. It includes one of the earliest recessed porticoes in England, and its exterior includes Doric and Ionic columns. Inside the building, the library is a circular room about 50 ft in diameter; it is top-lit with a dome. The newsroom and coffee room measure about 70 ft by 50 ft. The club was built between 1801 and 1802 at a cost of £11,000. In 1803 building commenced in Manchester of the Portico Library, which also incorporated a gentlemen's club, and introduced Greek motifs to the city. Like the Liverpool club, it contains a recessed portico with Ionic columns and half-columns. The interior measures about 60 ft by 40 ft; the ground floor was used as the newsroom, the library books were arranged around a gallery, and again it was top-lit with a dome. The building was completed in 1806 and cost about £6.800. The third gentlemen's club was the Commercial News Room in Chester, with three Ionic half-columns on its main front. The newsroom measures about 40 ft by 25 ft. It opened in 1808, and is smaller than the other club's, costing about £2,700. All the gentlemen's clubs are still in existence, but two major buildings Harrison designed in Manchester have not survived. The Theatre Royal was built in 1806–07 at a cost of about £12,000 ; it could seat 1,020 people, but was destroyed by fire in 1844. Harrison also designed the Manchester Exchange to replace an earlier building with the same purpose. It contained a newsroom, library, dining room, and post office. The exchange was built between 1806 and 1809, and had a semi-circular front decorated with Doric half-columns, but it has since been superseded by a larger building.

Domestic and related structures
While Harrison was working on Lancaster and Chester castles, he was also involved with domestic projects, four of them around Edinburgh in Scotland. The first consisted in making alterations to Gosford House for the 7th Earl of Wemyss. There is circumstantial evidence that he also designed the mausoleum in the grounds of the house, but a definite attribution cannot be made. This commission led, through personal contacts, for further work. The first was to build Kennet House near Clackmannan (now demolished) for Sir Thomas Dundas; it was Harrison's first major house. He then made extensions to Broomhall, a house near Dunfermline, for Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin. Finally in Scotland, Harrison prepared plans for another new house, Colinton House near Edinburgh, for the banker Sir William Forbes. Following this, Harrison is credited with the design of Quernmore Park Hall, near Lancaster, for Charles Gibson, a house built between 1795 and 1798.

In 1804 Harrison made a series of plans for the rebuilding of Lowther Hall in Westmorland, but these were not accepted. However he was successful with his plans to enlarge and remodel Gredington, a house in North Wales, for Lord Kenyon, executed between 1807 and 1811 at a cost of £6,675. Between 1808 and 1810 Harrison converted three rooms on the west side of the first floor of Tabley House, near Knutsford, Cheshire, into a picture gallery for Sir John Fleming Leicester. This was followed by a series of new houses, Oughtrington Hall, near Lymm, Cheshire, Woodbank, on the edge of Stockport (then in Cheshire), Glan-yr-Afon in Llanferres, North Wales, Dee Hills House in Chester, and Grove House in Allerton near Liverpool. In 1820 Harrison designed Watergate House on a corner site in Watergate Street, Chester; it is one of the largest private houses in the town. The entrance to the house is on the corner, leading to a circular lobby and a square entrance hall, which is top-lit by a dome with a lantern. Harrison's last commission for a country house in Cheshire was his design for Tilstone Lodge near the village of Tilstone Fearnall; this has a porte-cochère supported by four Doric columns. At about this time Harrison was also designing alterations to the east wing of Chirk Castle in North Wales. In late 1821 he was commissioned to work on Hardwick Grange near Hadnall in Shropshire for Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill, which involved alterations to the front of the house, and the addition of a new dining-room. At the request of the owner, this was in Gothic style; the house has since been demolished. In 1822–23 Harrison built a house for himself, St Martin's Lodge in Nicholas Street, Chester, which consists of a simple villa. His last work for a private client was again for Roland Hill, a building called the Citadel in Hawkstone Park, Shropshire. It was built as a dower house for his mother, and has the appearance of a small castle, with three circular battlemented towers.

Ecclesiastical buildings
Only a small proportion of Harrison's work was on churches. In 1804 he re-faced the south side of St Peter's Church in Chester, and he carried out further alterations to the church in 1813. Between 1805 and 1806 he redesigned the nave of St John the Baptist's Church in Whittington, Shropshire, which had been badly damaged in a storm. He did design one new church, the Wesleyan Methodist Church in St John Street, Chester, which was built in 1811. Although his design was used for the exterior, the internal decoration and fittings were planned by his main contractor, William Cole, and the church has been much altered since. In 1810 came the commission for what is described as "without doubt his [Harrison's] best work at a church", to rebuild the steeple of the Church of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas, Liverpool. Earlier that year the spire on the medieval tower had collapsed, destroying the tower in the process. The work was completed in 1815 at a cost of over £22,000. The steeple has a height of 120 ft, its buttresses rising above the top of the tower as pinnacles, the open-work spire being supported by flying buttresses. Harrison also designed a domed ceiling for St Paul's Church in Liverpool, but this has since been demolished.

Between 1814 and 1816 a chapel was built to Harrison's design at West Hall, High Legh to replace an earlier chapel. This was a simple building that burnt out in 1891, some of its fabric being incorporated into a new church on the site, St John's Church. In 1818 the Right Revd George Henry Law, Bishop of Chester, asked Harrison to carry out work on the south transept of Chester Cathedral, which was showing signs of instability. This work involved building deep buttresses at the south end of the transept, and giving some attention to the gutters.

Other works
Harrison designed a variety of other structures, one of the most important of which was the replacement of Northgate in Chester, at the suggestion of Earl Grosvenor, mayor of the city in 1807. The other three gateways, Eastgate, Bridgegate, and Watergate, which carried the footway of the City Walls over the medieval entrances to the city, had been replaced during the 18th century. The earl wanted the structure to be designed in Gothic style, but Harrison advised that it would be more fitting to the adjacent Roman walls for it to be Neoclassical, and after much debate this was accepted. The gateway consists of three arches, a wide central arch for vehicles, and two narrower arches for pedestrians, incorporating pairs of monolithic Doric columns. Harrison then designed Denbighshire Infirmary in North Wales, built between 1810 and 1813, and in about 1820 he made some internal alterations to the Chester Exchange. In 1820 Harrison was consulted by Magdalen College, Oxford, about improvements to New Building, a block of the college built in 1733, and on other alterations. His plans for New Building were adopted, and the additions were made in 1824 at a cost of £2,600. Harrison was also involved in the building of a series of monuments. His first commission was to design the Jubilee Tower on the summit of Moel Famau, the highest point of the Clwydian Range in North Wales, to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of George III in 1810. This consisted of an obelisk in two stages on a broad base. The obelisk collapsed in 1862, and the base was remodelled in 1970 to make a viewing platform. The design of Lord Hill's Column in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, has been attributed to Harrison, but this is incorrect. The architect was Edward Haycock, but Harrison did make alterations to the design, changing the style of the column, and adding a pedestal with statues of lions; and Harrison did supervise the construction. Harrison designed The Marquess of Anglesey's Column in Llanfairpwll on Anglesey to commemorate the feats of Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey. This was constructed in 1816–17 at a cost of nearly £2,000. His last memorial was a ceremonial gateway, the Admiralty Arch, at Holyhead, also on Anglesey, to commemorate the landing there of George IV in 1821. It consists of an archway with Doric columns, and cost £600, and was opened in 1824.

Personal life
Harrison married Margaret Shackleton at Lancaster Priory in 1785. The couple had three children who survived childhood; a son, John, who died in 1802, and two daughters. Harrison died aged 85 at his home, St Martin's Lodge, Chester, in 1829. He was buried in the churchyard of St Bridget's Church, Chester, but his remains were moved to Blacon Cemetery when the churchyard was cleared in about 1964. His estate amounted to £6,000.

Present day
An additional arch was added to Skerton Bridge in about 1849 to allow for the passage of the "Little" North Western Railway (since closed) beneath it. The bridge continues to be used by heavy traffic. A survey in 1995 concluded that the bridge is still strong enough to carry vehicles ten times the weight of the heaviest vehicles of the time it was built. Grosvenor Bridge remains in use, carrying the A483 road over the River Dee, and is still the longest single-span masonry bridge in Britain.

Other than the smaller bridges, almost all the structures designed by Harrison have been designated as listed buildings by English Heritage, Cadw, or Historic Scotland. Some of the buildings he completely designed (rather than altered) have been listed at the highest levels, Grade I in England and Wales, and Category A in Scotland. Grade I includes buildings that "are of exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important"; only 2.5% of listed buildings are in this Grade. Category A consists of "buildings of national or international importance, either architectural or historic, or fine little-altered examples of some particular period, style or building type", and includes about 7% of the Scottish listed buildings. These structures are, in Chester, Grosvenor Bridge, and Northgate, and in Scotland, the Mausoleum at Gosford House, and Colinton House. Lancaster Castle as a whole is listed at Grade I, and at Chester Castle four of Harrison's buildings are listed separately at this Grade: the main block containing the Shire Hall, the Propylaea, and the two blocks flanking the forecourt.

A number of Harrison's structures in England and Wales are listed at Grade II*, the middle grade for those that are "particularly important buildings of more than special interest"; 5.5% of all listed buildings are Grade II*. They include Skerton Bridge, Bridge Houses, Lancaster, St Mary's Bridge, Derby, Quernmore Park Hall, the Lyceum in Liverpool, The Portico Library in Manchester, Woodbank in Stockport, the Marquess of Anglesey's Column, Watergate House in Chester, and the Citadel at Hawkstone Park.

Appraisal
That Harrison was a fine innovative designer of bridges is evidenced by the continuing successful use by modern heavy traffic on Skerton and Grosvenor Bridges, and on St Mary's Bridge in Derby. As an architect, the editors of the Cheshire volume of the Buildings of England series describe him as "one of the most important of Cheshire's architects". Harrison's first biographer, Arthur Blomfield, said he was "almost, if not quite, the first architectural genius in the kingdom".

Although most of his designs were in Neoclassical style, he also created buildings in Gothic style, for example at Lancaster Castle, and Hardwick Grange. Nevertheless, he is considered to be one of the main influences in the Greek Revival of architecture in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The architectural historian Giles Worsley describes him as "the first English architect to grasp the full potential of the Greek Revival", and David Watkin says he is the "finest" of the architects who revived the forms of Greek architecture. Of the Shire Hall in Chester Castle, Worsley says it is "the first serious monument of the Greek Revival". Writing about Harrison's designs at Chester Castle, Pevsner says "What he [Harrison] has achieved here is one of the most powerful monuments of the Greek Revival in the whole of England".

Harrison spent the whole of his career in the northwest of England and, other than his houses in Scotland and his work in Oxford, his works were confined to Lancashire, Cheshire, Shropshire, Cumbria, Derbyshire, and North Wales. He was never a member of the Royal Academy or any other London-based institution, and only a rare visitor to London once his practice was established. Nevertheless, Charles Cockerell (later to become the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects) said of him in 1828 that he was "undoubtedly the noblest genius in architecture we have had".

title: Thomas Harrison (architect)


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Bransbury

Bransbury is a hamlet in Hampshire, England, part of the parish of Barton Stacey. The nearest village is Barton Stacey (where the 2011 census was included), halfway between Winchester and Andover; there is a junction for Bransbury on the A303 towards Exeter. Bransbury has twenty-two dwellings: a collection of agricultural workers’ cottages with gardens of generous proportions, Bransbury Manor, which dates from the 18th century, and Bransbury Mill, a Grade II listed building. The Crook and Shears Inn public house was converted into a dwelling in the late 20th century. The hamlet straddles the River Dever.

The road from Barton Stacey to Bransbury is prone to pooling water, because of its position on the flood plain.

History
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and Charters are the first written records (855 A.D.) that Bransbury is mentioned in. The Andyke in Bransbury is an Iron Age ditch and bank survival of a promontory fort with evidence of round houses, and is a Historic England Scheduled Monument. The course of the Roman road which crosses the parish via Bransbury Common can be traced from Winchester to Marlborough and beyond towards Cirencester. There is also evidence of a Roman camp east of Manor Farm, with the remains of ditches and banks. Further evidence of Romano-British inhabitants was found in 1977 with the discovery of a ‘plank’ burial of a young woman between Barton Stacey and Bransbury.

The manor of Bransbury has been farmed from at least the time of Domesday and was granted by Henry VIII to the Dean and Chapter of Winchester and their successors for a yearly rent. The four terraced houses known as The Barracks are Grade II listed buildings. Development in recent times has been limited to the conversion of farm buildings.

Small business
Bransbury is home to a business that hand makes organic soap and beauty products.

There is a holiday cottage for rent in Bransbury It is popular with visiting anglers and their families, and the Dever Springs Fishery is a short walk away.

Bransbury common
Bransbury common is a large stretch of common land between Bransbury and Newton Stacey. It is classified as a SSSI and a nature conservation area. It consists of broadleaved, mixed, and yew woodland, fenland, marshland, swamp, and has the river Dever joining the river Test. It consists of 392 acres of common land and disused water meadows embracing a remarkable range of grass and sedgeland that is probably unparalleled in southern England. It is also a public access area that is subject to the Countryside Right of Way (CRoW) Act 2000.

The common is popular with walkers, who admire the broad and bushy riverside pasture with views of Harewood Forest. The path is ill-defined in places, and it is advisable to keep close to the left edge of the common to avoid the marsh. The common is very popular with birdwatchers, and often has cows grazing on it.

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title: Bransbury


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Inner class

In object-oriented programming (OOP), an inner class or nested class is a class declared entirely within the body of another class or interface. It is distinguished from a subclass.

Overview
An instance of a normal or top-level class can exist on its own. By contrast, an instance of an inner class cannot be instantiated without being bound to a top-level class.

Let us take the abstract notion of a  with four  s. Our  s have a specific feature that relies on being part of our. This notion does not represent the s as  s in a more general form that could be part of any vehicle. Instead, it represents them as specific to a. We can model this notion using inner classes as follows:

We have the top-level class. Instances of class  are composed of four instances of the class. This particular implementation of  is specific to a car, so the code does not model the general notion of a wheel that would be better represented as a top-level class. Therefore, it is semantically connected to the class  and the code of   is in some way coupled to its outer class, being a composition unit of a car. The wheel for a particular car is unique to that car, but for generalization, the wheel is an aggregation unit to the car.

Inner classes provide a mechanism to accurately model this connection. We can refer to our  class as ,   being the top-level class and   being the inner class.

Inner classes therefore allow for the object orientation of certain parts of the program that would otherwise not be encapsulated into a class.

Larger segments of code within a class might be better modeled or refactored as a separate top-level class, rather than an inner class. This would make the code more general in its application and therefore more re-usable but potentially might be premature generalization. This may prove more effective, if code has many inner classes with the shared functionality.

Types of nested classes in Java
In Java there are four types of nested class:

 * Static
 * Static member class, also called static nested classes –  They are declared  . Like other things in static scope (i.e. static methods), they do not have an enclosing instance, and cannot access instance variables and methods of the enclosing class. They are almost identical to non-nested classes except for scope details (they can refer to static variables and methods of the enclosing class without qualifying the name; other classes that are not one of its enclosing classes have to qualify its name with its enclosing class's name). Nested interfaces are implicitly static.

Inner class – The following categories are called inner classes. Each instance of these classes has a reference to an enclosing instance (i.e. an instance of the enclosing class), except for local and anonymous classes declared in static context. Hence, they can implicitly refer to instance variables and methods of the enclosing class. The enclosing instance reference can be explicitly obtained via. Inner classes may not have static variables or methods, except for compile-time constant variables. When they are created, they must have a reference to an instance of the enclosing class; which means they must either be created within an instance method or constructor of the enclosing class, or (for member and anonymous classes) be created using the syntax.
 * Non-static / inner classes

 * Member class – They are declared outside a function (hence a "member") and not declared "static".
 * Local class – These are classes that are declared in the body of a function. They can only be referred to in the rest of the function. They can use local variables and parameters of the function, but only one that are declared "final". (This is because the local class instance must maintain a separate copy of the variable, as it may out-live the function; so as not to have the confusion of two modifiable variables with the same name in the same scope, the variable is forced to be non-modifiable.) Can be very helpful for creation a class with generic type fields, where the type variables are defined in the method.
 * Anonymous class – These are local classes that are automatically declared and instantiated in the middle of an expression. They can only directly extend one class or implement one interface. They can specify arguments to the constructor of the superclass, but cannot otherwise have a constructor (however, this is not a limitation, since it can have an instance initializer block to perform any initialization).

Programming languages

 * Inner classes became a feature of the Java programming language starting with version 1.1.
 * Nested classes are also a feature of the D programming language, Visual Basic .NET, Ruby, C++ and C#.
 * In Python, it is possible to nest a class within another class, method or function.
 * C++ has nested classes that are like Java's static member classes, except that they are not declared with "static".
 * BETA language introduced this notion of nested classes.

GUI code
Local inner classes are often used in Java to define callbacks for GUI code. Components can then share an object that implements an event handling interface or extends an abstract adapter class, containing the code to be executed when a given event is triggered.

Anonymous inner classes are also used where the event handling code is only used by one component and therefore does not need a named reference.

This avoids a large monolithic  method with multiple if-else branches to identify the source of the event. This type of code is often considered messy and the inner class variations are considered to be better in all regards.

title: Inner class


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The Bouncer (video game)

The Bouncer (バウンサー) is a 2000 beat 'em up video game for the PlayStation 2 co-developed by Squaresoft and DreamFactory. It was published in Japan by Squaresoft in December 2000, in North America by Square Electronic Arts in March 2001, and in Europe by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in June 2001. The game was produced by Shinji Hashimoto, co-directed by Takashi Tokita and Seiichi Ishii, and features character designs by Tetsuya Nomura, and music by Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi.

The game tells the story of three bouncers in the fictional city of Edge on a rescue mission to save their young friend from the Mikado Group, a solar technology megacorporation owned by the megalomaniacal Dauragon C. Mikado. The game is structured like a "playable action movie," with the plot unfolding differently depending on which character the player chooses for specific gameplay sequences.

The Bouncer was Square's first game released internationally on the PlayStation 2, and although it received considerable press coverage before its release, and was greatly anticipated as one of the marquee titles in the first batch of PS2 games, it was met with poor sales and mixed reviews.

Gameplay

Controls in The Bouncer are similar to those in the Tobal series. Certain buttons denote high, middle, and low attacks, whilst others are used for jumping attacks, blocking, and special moves. Players have a health meter during gameplay, which, if depleted, means the player dies. Players also have a limited number of guard points available to them, although this is not represented by an onscreen meter. As the player blocks, the number of guard points diminish. When they are gone completely, the player can no longer block.

The game's combat uses ragdoll physics, which allows characters to be launched several feet into the air, making it possible to juggle enemies by striking them repeatedly. Enemies can also be thrown or otherwise knocked into one another, causing all of them to take damage at once.

Story Mode
The Bouncer is structured as a series of short gameplay segments interspersed with cinematic cutscenes that tell the game's story. With the Active Character Selection (ACS) system, when a cutscene concludes, the player is given the choice to control one of the three protagonists and proceed onto the next gameplay segment. The player then controls this character for the duration of the level, whilst the other two characters are controlled by the AI. At the conclusion of each gameplay segment, the player is able to spend Bouncer Points (BP), the game's equivalent of experience points, using the Point Exchange System. BPs can be used to boost the character's statistics (health, power and guard) and unlock new fighting moves. Spending BPs allows the character to level up, with their rank graded on a letter scale from G to A, and finally, an S-Rank.

Typical gameplay in The Bouncer consists of the player fighting groups of enemies using hand-to-hand combat techniques. Occasionally, one of the AI-controlled bouncers will do a taunt, prompting a button-press to activate a team attack ("Trinity Rush") which damages all enemies on screen. However, the Trinity Rush is ineffective against some bosses. In some instances, the player is also tasked with activities other than fighting, such as running through a series of hallways to avoid being caught in a flood, finding a keycard, or fooling enemies into thinking the player is one of them. In general, a gameplay segment ends when the player has either defeated all of the enemies in the area, has defeated a boss enemy, or has achieved a set goal.

Survival Mode
In addition to the main Story Mode, there is also a single-player survival mode. Spanning ten stages and fifty enemies, every time the player survives a round, the gameplay gets progressively more difficult. At the start of each stage, the player's health bar does not return to full, but remains where it was at the end of the previous stage.

Multiplayer
The Bouncer supports the PlayStation 2 multitap accessory, and the game's multiplayer Versus Mode supports up to four players simultaneously in the "Battle Royal" mode. Battle Royal can also be played by a single player against three AI-controlled opponents, or by two players against two AI-controlled opponents.

Synopsis
Set in Edge, a modern-day metropolis run by the Mikado Group corporation led by Dauragon Mikado, the story opens at the Fate bar on Dog Street, where three bouncers are enjoying a quiet evening; the young boy Sion, the light-hearted Kou, and the intimidating but just Volt. Dominique, a new friend of Sion's, visits to gift Sion a new necklace from his favorite fashion line. Fate is then attacked by masked soldiers from Mikado who kidnap Dominique, and Sion pursues them with Kou and Volt in tow. They pursue signs of Dominique across Edge, splitting up in a few places and confronting agents of Mikado. These include Echidna, a supervisor who knows Volt; Kaldea, a former friend of Sion's turned through experimentation into a shapeshifter; and Mugetsu, a soldier driven insane by enhancement experiments. Each protagonist has their own routes which impact story sequences, and backstory elements during loading screens in their routes. During their missions, they learn that Dominique is an android created in the image of Dauragon's late sister, and he is planning to destroy Edge and take over the world as an act of revenge, as he blames society for their abandonment on the streets and his sister's death due to the failure of Edge's social systems. Echidna is defeated and eventually abandons Mikado. Kaldea's exact fate depends on who is selected to fight her, though in all routes she ultimately dies. Mugetsu is killed by the group after Dominique is taken to a rocket heading for a new satellite designed by Dauragon to destroy Edge. With help from Leann, the three reach the satellite in a shuttle, freeing Dominique and defeating Dauragon as the satellite is destroyed. Depending on the final character selected, the ending scene varies; Sion is shown happy with Dominique, Volt meets Echidna again, while Kou opts to remain assigned to Dominique. A series of post-credit stills shows Dominique, wearing Sion's necklace, visiting her friends' graves. In Sion's route, a further scene shows when he and Dominique first met.
 * Sion was Kaldea's childhood friend and the adopted student of Wong Leung, a master martial artist who held old ties with the Mikado Group. Wong Leung later mysteriously disappeared to train Dauragon, and Kaldea later died in their teenage years in an industrial accident while working as an intern at Mikado. These experiences left Sion both emotionally scarred and eventually suicidally depressed, leading him to pick violent street fights in Edge's dangerous slums as a way to end his life. He was taken in by Fate after being beaten by Volt in a fist fight, then encountered Dominique on the streets and decided to care for her.
 * Kou is an undercover operative under Leann Caldwell, assigned by the anti-Mikado intelligence agency LUKIS to watch over Dominique. His distinctive full-body tattoo was a requirement for his mission so he could blend in on Dog Street. His real identity is Kou Hurst, the Hurst family being once prestigious in Edge, before being overshadowed by the Mikado Group.
 * Volt was a former Mikado employee loyal to Dauragon's adoptive father and previous head of the Mikado Group, Master Mikado. Soon rising to become Mikado's most dedicated and elite bodyguard, this came to earn the jealousy of Echidna, and when he attempted to fight against Dauragon, he was framed for Master Mikado's death and almost died. Taken in by the staff of Fate, he obscured facial scarring from his escape using face piercings. Originally, he was a street gang leader who was hired by a younger Dauragon to take out Master Mikado, but joined his ranks upon Mikado displaying no fear towards his former assailant, commandeering his respect.

Development
The game was announced at the Spring Tokyo Game Show in March 1999, where it was revealed as Square's first PlayStation 2 title. On July 12, 1999, IGN reported that Square was working on three PlayStation 2 games; an unknown game, a Final Fantasy game and a fighting game, which was thought to be Ehrgeiz 2. Footage of the game was subsequently shown at the SIGGRAPH Convention in August, at which time the game was still thought to be Ehrgeiz 2. The footage showed the three main characters, which at that time were two men and one woman, fighting a group of ninja in a café. However, on August 23, MagicBox.com reported the game was not a sequel, but an original story. The title of the game was revealed on September 10, when Sony announced the PlayStation 2 launch titles.

A non-playable demo was shown at the Fall Tokyo Game Show in September. IGN reported "Square's "Seamless Action Battle System" means that players will roam from adventure sequence to fighting sequence without intermittent FMVs or cutscenes that look out of place; the adventure aspects blend seamlessly into massive street brawls involving as many ten characters." GameSpot were also very enthusiastic about the early footage from the game, writing "The Bouncer is arguably one of the strongest visual demonstrations of the PlayStation 2 hardware thus far. Designed to appear as though you're controlling characters in a movie, The Bouncer's camera movements and special effects truly appear as though they're straight out of a Hollywood creation."

At the Spring Tokyo Game Show in March 2000, Square showed only a ten-second clip of the game, and revealed no new screenshots or information. They also had no release date, leading some journalists to speculate there may be problems behind the scenes. At E3 in May, Square showed some new footage from the game, although they still did not provide a playable demo. IGN was underwhelmed with the new material, feeling there appeared to be too many cutscenes in relation to actual gameplay. On July 13, GameSpot revealed the game's character designs were being handled by Tetsuya Nomura, and the game would receive a simultaneous North American/Japanese release in late 2000. However, on September 1, IGN reported DreamFactory were having difficulty working with the PlayStation 2's hardware, and the game had been pushed back to January 2001.

On September 19, IGN revealed that the game would feature Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound for the FMV cutscenes, and Square were attempting to use 5.1 sound for gameplay sections as well. GameSpot revealed more details about the game on September 20, including the three available modes of play: Story, Versus and Survival. They reported that Square expected the story mode to take players roughly seven to eight hours to complete thoroughly.

On September 21, IGN published a roundtable interview with members of the development team; character designer Tetsuya Nomura, composers Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi, and co-director Takashi Tokita. The developers outlined the gameplay mechanics, the branching story, the versus and survival modes, the music, the character design, and the challenges of working on the PlayStation 2 for the first time. Tokita claimed the most difficult aspect of the game's creation was working with the PlayStation 2's hardware. The team also said the gameplay was partially derived from DreamFactory's Ehrgeiz and Tobal games, while graphically, the atmosphere was developed with the use of filters and lighting.

On November 13, Square announced a Japanese release date of December 23. On December 18, they confirmed a North American release date of January 30, 2001, although this was quickly pushed back to March.

The game uses the bloom shader effect to soften rough edges.

Audio
The Bouncer was the first PlayStation 2 game to feature Dolby 5.1 sound, which was used specifically for the FMV sequences. In addition, it features voice acting with subtitles in both English and Japanese. Because the game was being considered for a North American release early in production, the English voices were recorded first. The Japanese voices were recorded and incorporated later to "provide more of a DVD quality to the game."

Soundtrack
The Bouncer was scored by Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi. The game contains several vocal themes, including the original Japanese ending theme song "Forevermore" ("Owaranaimono"), performed by Reiko Noda, and the English-language theme song "Love Is the Gift", performed by Shanice Wilson. Takashi Tokita has commented that the lyrics of "Love Is the Gift", heard during the closing credits, signify the game's overall theme.

Two separate soundtracks were released; one in Japan and one in North America. The Japanese version, The Bouncer Original Soundtrack, is a 2-disc, 29-track album, published on March 23, 2001, by DigiCube.

The North American version, The Bouncer Original Video Game Soundtrack, is a single disc, 21-track album, published on March 26, 2001, by Tokyopop Soundtrax.

Reception
The Bouncer received "mixed or average reviews," and holds an aggregate score of 66 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on twenty reviews.

With the consideration of its high-profile development team, as well as the fact that it was a front-runner PlayStation 2 release, The Bouncer was highly anticipated. However, the game was perceived as a disappointment by many, and was largely seen as mediocre. Numerous aspects from the E3 trailer, such as destructible scenery, were removed in the final game, possibly in order to get the game out in time to be among the first batch of PlayStation 2 titles. Much of the criticism, however, fell on the gameplay. IGN found the controls average and the camera angles to become a major issue in the later portions of the game, where the player is confined to tight spaces. The game was also seen as having an excessive amount of cutscenes and load screens. GameCritics' Brad Galloway, for example, argued actual gameplay constitutes less than one third of the game's length.

IGN's Douglass C. Perry reviewed an import version of the game prior to its release in North America, and was disappointed with the lack of depth, but impressed by other aspects. He praised the graphics, character design and CGI cutscenes. He was also impressed with the "glowing" effect used throughout the game; "DreamFactory employs a Playboy-like filter that smoothes out every single bit on the screen. The effect is consistent throughout the game, and rids the PS2 of aliasing or flickering, but also provides a unique gloss that's never been used before with such success." He concluded that, "despite the disappointments, I am absolutely having a great time with The Bouncer." In his official review of the game upon its North American release, Perry scored it 7 out of 10, writing "The game is a letdown, but not a catastrophic one. [...] It's a good game, not a great one, and it's worth a look." He referred to Story Mode as a "mixed bag of good ideas executed ineffectively," although he praised multiplayer mode. He concluded "The Bouncer is not the next messiah, it's not the next wave of fighting, and frankly, it's not the paradigm for anything really new, except perhaps incredible-looking graphics. These things said, The Bouncer is a decent game. It's not horrible, it's not brilliant. It's pretty average."

In his look at the import version, GameSpot's Miguel Lopez called the game "little more than a glorified and highly cinematic version of Final Fight using dated Tobal animations." He called the graphics "quite competent," but was highly critical of the game's length, estimating a player could play through the entire game in 45 minutes or less, if they skipped cutscenes. In his full review, Jeff Gerstmann scored the game 6.7 out of 10. Of the graphics, he said "Everything, from the characters to the backgrounds, looks absolutely incredible." He concluded "The Bouncer makes a great showpiece for the PlayStation 2. It looks and sounds incredible. However, the ease and extremely short length of the game, matched with other problems like horrific camera angles and lack of a multiplayer story mode, make The Bouncer fair, at best." It was a runner-up for GameSpot's annual "Most Disappointing Game" award among console games, which went to Luigi's Mansion.

Game Revolution's Brian Gee awarded the game a C+. He wrote, "It's easy to tell what the developers focused on, because The Bouncer is obviously one of the best-looking games on a console to date. Near flawless animations and picture perfect visuals make it a great choice to show off the sleek Sony super machine to your friends. Once the game begins, though, The Bouncer sheds it's [sic] pretty boy image and gets down and dirty." He was critical of the controls and the absence of a lock-on feature. Like other critics, he also had problems with the camera and the ratio of cutscenes to gameplay. He concluded "Though many will undoubtedly be disappointed by The Bouncer's inability to live up to the hype, others will find a fancy beat 'em up to pass a few hours. Its flashy graphics are at least worth taking a look at, but its many problems just might keep it from a place in the collection."

GamePro were more impressed, scoring the game 4.5 out 5, and writing "The Bouncer slickly combines copious amounts of hard-hitting moves with a stellar story line all in a visually stunning world."

Blake Fischer reviewed the PlayStation 2 version of the game for Next Generation, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "The Bouncer manages to look good, but don't let that fool you into thinking that it's very fun."

Sales
The Bouncer was a commercial failure. In its debut week in Japan, it sold 158,727 units, debuting as the fifth highest selling game across all systems. It went on to sell 219,858 units by the end of 2000, finishing as the 53rd highest selling game of the year, across all systems, and the 9th highest selling PlayStation 2 game of the year. It sold an additional 126,123 units in 2001, for a total of 345,981 units sold.

title: The Bouncer (video game)


text: Category:Institutes

title: Category:Institutes


text:
Special Assistance Plan

The Special Assistance Plan (SAP; ) is a programme in Singapore introduced in 1979 which caters to academically strong students who excel in both their mother tongue as well as English. It is available only in selected primary and secondary schools. In a SAP school, several subjects may be taught in the mother tongue, alongside other subjects that are taught in English. SAP schools currently cater only to those studying Mandarin as their mother tongue although theoretically, future SAP schools for other mother tongues are a possibility.

List of schools
Special Assistance Plan schools (or SAP schools, ) refers to schools that offers the Special Assistance Plan. The SAP is offered at both primary (elementary) school level as well as secondary (high school) level, in Special Assistance Plan primary schools and Special Assistance Plan high schools  respectively.

Admission
A student's admission to a SAP school (or any secondary school for that matter) is decided based on their results in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). To enter a SAP school, a student must achieve a PSLE aggregate score that puts him in the top 10% of his cohort, with an 'A' grade for both the Chinese and English (before AL).

This means that only a relatively small group of students who are academically and linguistically strong may enter a SAP school. Consequently, SAP schools have a reputation of being the "elite" group of secondary schools in the country, alongside independent and autonomous schools. This stems from the Singaporean tradition of effective bilingualism in the education of the elite students from SAP schools. Some students, regardless of whether they are in a SAP school, are offered a chance at effective trilingualism in secondary education starting from age 13. The first language, English, is the international language of commercial and the administrative and legal language of Singapore, a former British colony. The mother tongue reflecting the cultural and ethnic identity of the student. The "third languages" are foreign and Asian languages which are considered by MOE to be "economically, politically and culturally vital", such as Japanese, German, Spanish, French, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese (Special Programme) and Malay (Special Programme). In order to qualify for these programmes, a student must obtain a PSLE score of AL8 or better for foreign language, and AL24 for Asian Language.

Historical context
Many SAP schools were historically Chinese language medium schools, i.e. they taught all academic subjects in Mandarin (including science and mathematics), and which may have taught English as a foreign language. Following Singapore's independence in 1965, the government recognised four official languages in Singapore (English, Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil), but clearly designated English as the main language of basic and higher education, government and law, science and technology as well as trade and industry. This is reflected in the Bilingual Policy which came into effect in 1966. While according official recognition to the languages of different ethno-linguistic communities in Singapore, it sought to promote English as a neutral common language to unite a culturally diverse nation of immigrants. English was also held to be the language of international higher education, science/technology and commerce. As such, it was indispensable to Singapore, given her ambition to become a 'Global City', articulated as early as 1972.

As the English language gained importance, more parents inclined to send their child to English-medium schools, which adversely affected enrollment of Chinese-medium schools. In 1977, admission to Chinese-medium elementary schools made up only 10 per cent of the nation's cohort, which increasingly reflected the increasingly critical status of the Chinese-medium schools, in stark contrast over a decade. The need to preserve traditional Chinese schools with rich heritage and culture became a pressing agenda for the government, with raising English standards and attracting capable students into such schools a key priority, as pointed out by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

In 1979, the Ministry of Education (MOE) designated nine Chinese-medium secondary schools as Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools. These schools were intended to provide top-scoring primary school leavers with the opportunity to study both English and Mandarin to high levels of competence. Also, these schools were to preserve the character of traditional Chinese-medium secondary schools and allay fears that the Government was indifferent to Chinese language and culture amid declining enrolments in Chinese-medium schools. The selected schools were given additional teaching resources and given assistance to run classes with a lower student-to-teacher ratio.

The programme was deemed highly successful with five of the designated schools consistently attaining top ten positions in the secondary school ranking in the 1990s, outperforming several established English-medium schools. This supported the Government to further expand the programme to two other institutions with strong Chinese heritage, including Nan Chiau High School, which was initially listed as an SAP school candidate in 1978. Six top performing SAP high schools are also approved by the Ministry of Education to offer Integrated Programme (IP) to their full cohort, with The Chinese High School, Nanyang Girls' High School being the piloting schools with Hwa Chong Junior College in 2004, followed by River Valley High School in 2006 and Dunman High School in 2008. Catholic High School and CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls' School were approved to offer Joint Integrated Programme in 2013 with Singapore Chinese Girls' School.

Societal significance
With rapid economic development and exposure to Western, particularly American popular culture and values in the 1970s and 1980s, Singapore began to change from a lower income, poorly educated society to a more confident, educated, vocal and individualistic society. Around the same time, in the 1980s, the world was witnessing the rise of Japan and the Asian newly-industrialised economies or NIEs, of which Singapore was one. Economically, America appeared unable to compete with rising Asian manufacturing competitors, especially Japan and was facing budget deficits. Singapore politicians from the dominant People's Action Party synthesised these various situations and developed certain ideas that came to be known as the Asian Values discourse.

According to this line of argument, Singapore, along with Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan, had succeeded so spectacularly in no small part because of their shared Confucianist cultural heritage, which emphasised values such as hard work, education, family unity, deference and loyalty to authority figures, community spirit (in contrast to Western individualism), etc.

To better sell this argument to a multi-ethnic population where the non-Chinese / non-'Confucianist' communities formed at least a quarter of the population, the discourse was re-branded 'Asian Values', rather than Confucian Work Ethic. In Singapore, traditional Asian culture was seen as a source of the nation's economic success thus far. As such, the government embarked on programmes and campaigns to promote traditional culture, including the revitalised Speak Mandarin Campaign (targeted at English rather than dialect speakers, as was historically the case) as well as SAP schools.

Concerns and criticisms
The SAP school programme is periodically criticised in the national media by Singaporeans who are concerned about the ethnic segregation that it inevitably promotes. SAP schools offer mother tongue lessons in only one language: Mandarin. This means that the vast majority, if not all, of the students in SAP schools will be ethnically Chinese. These students will have little opportunities to interact with people of other races, which can potentially cause issues in a multi-racial country like Singapore. Besides, the SAP does not have Malay or Tamil equivalents, which might be viewed by some as MOE not placing these two languages on an equal level as Mandarin. In addition, subjects that are related to Chinese culture may also be taught in Mandarin, such as Chinese literature, the history of China and Chinese–English translation studies.

title: Special Assistance Plan


text:
Wikipedia:Wikifun/Round 8/Answers/Question 15

Searching for asdf in the search box brings up Asdf, which mentions passwords and domain names (found searching google for: site:wikipedia.org passwords "domain names" -- Thejesterx 14:41, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * ''I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't find it by searching for "asdf", which is how I found it... Eugene van der Pijll 16:04, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)


text:
Derek Bourgeois

Derek David Bourgeois (16 October 1941 – 6 September 2017) was an English composer.

Career
Derek Bourgeois was born in Kingston upon Thames in 1941. After receiving his university education at Magdalene College, Cambridge (honours degree and doctorate), Bourgeois spent two years at the Royal College of Music, studying composition with Herbert Howells and conducting with Sir Adrian Boult.

From 1971 to 1984, Bourgeois was a lecturer in music at Bristol University, and director of the National Youth Orchestra from 1984 to 1993. In 1980 he began conducting the Sun Life Band (now the Stanshawe Band of Bristol), which was his introduction to brass bands. In 1994 Bourgeois was appointed director of music at St Paul's Girls School, London, a position previously held by a number of noted composers, including Gustav Holst and Herbert Howells.

After retiring from this post in 2002 he and his wife settled in Mallorca. Following her death in 2006, he remarried in 2008 and moved to New York City, but returned to the United Kingdom in 2009. He also conducted for various orchestras. His symphonies included Jabberwocky-Extravaganza (1963) and the symphonic fantasy The Astronauts (1969). For his Symphony of Winds, the First International Conference for Conductors, Publishers and Composers awarded him with their main commission in 1981. He also chaired Composer's Guild of Great Britain and served as the artistic director of Bristol Philharmonic Orchestra. He founded the National Youth Chamber Orchestra of Great Britain in 1988. He was also a member of the Music Advisory Panel of the Arts Council.

Bourgeois was a prolific composer for brass and wind bands. His works in that area included two concerti for brass band, the concerto grosso, Blitz, Diversions, Serenade, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and Apocalypse. Reviewing Bourgeois's Sonata for Trombone, David Vinning of trombone.org wrote: "Bourgeois is a skilled composer who knows how to write for the trombone and this piece is a major new work sure to become popular." Bourgeois's first band work was a concerto, adapted from a flute concerto. He has also played the tuba.

Bourgeois's first symphony, which he composed at the age of 18, was positively reviewed in the Guardian by Stanley Sadie, the future editor of Grove's Dictionary. By 2009, Bourgeois had written 44 symphonies, well beyond the number composed by Havergal Brian, and a larger number than were produced by most 19th and 20th century composers. In an interview with Alan Rusbridger of the Guardian, he said that the symphonies came "tumbling out." By the time of his death in 2017, he had 116 symphonies to his name.

Bourgeois also composed music for the television movie The Crucible (1981), the short documentaries Thirty Million Letters (1963) and The Driving Force (1966), the TV series The Barchester Chronicles (1982), Mansfield Park (1983), and the "Buddyboy" episode of the TV series Beasts (1976).

Personal life
His first wife, the violinist Jean Bourgeois, died of motor neurone disease on 27 November 2006. She had played in the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and was also a piano teacher. After returning to the UK from the USA in 2009, Bourgeois lived in Wool, Dorset, with his second wife, Norma Bourgeois. He died on 6 September 2017 in Poole, Dorset, and is survived by his wife Norma.

Works
Orchestral and Choral Music

 * Symphony for Chamber Orchestra, Op. 8: 15 minutes (1960)
 * Symphony No. 1, Op. 10: 19 minutes (1961)
 * Overture “Mail Train”, Op. 16: 9 minutes (1963)
 * “Jabberwocky”-Extravaganza for baritone, chorus and orchestra, Op. 18: 55 minutes (1963)
 * Symphonic Variations, Op. 19: 24 minutes (1964)
 * Promenade for large or small orchestra, Op. 20: 4 minutes (1964)
 * Serenade for Small Orchestra, Op. 22a: 3 minutes (1965)
 * Variations on a Theme of Mozart for Two Double Basses and Orchestra, Op. 24: 12 minutes (1966)
 * Concertino for Clarinet and Strings, Op. 25: 13 minutes (1967)
 * Symphony No. 2, Op. 27: 36 minutes (1968)
 * Orchestral Fantasy “The Globe”, Op. 29: 16 minutes (1969)
 * Variations and Commentaries for Strings, Op. 31: 15 minutes (1969)
 * Overture “Green Dragon”, Op. 32: 8 minutes (1969)
 * Concerto for Amateur Orchestra, Op. 36: 25 minutes (1971)
 * Bass Tuba Concerto, Op. 38: 43 minutes (1972)
 * Symphonic Pageant, Op. 41:13 minutes (1973)
 * Fanfare for Shakespeare for orchestra, Op. 45: 2 minutes (1975)
 * Dance Variations for Small Orchestra, Op. 50: 18 minutes (1976)
 * Clarinet Concerto, Op. 51: 19 minutes (1976)
 * “Conflicts” for orchestra, Op. 52: 10 minutes (1976)
 * Concerto for Three Trombones, Strings and Percussion, Op. 56: 22 minutes (1977)
 * Symphony No. 3, Op. 57: 50 minutes (1977)
 * Symphony No. 4 “A Wine Symphony”, Op. 58: 55 minutes (1978)
 * “Triumphal March” for tenor, chorus and orchestra, Op. 59: 18 minutes (1978)
 * Double Bass Concerto, Op. 62: 26 minutes (1979)
 * Cantata Gastronomica for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra, Op. 63: 35 minutes (1979)
 * Romance for Double Bass and Orchestra, Op. 64: 11 minutes (1979)
 * “Chamber of Horrors”-Four Demonic Dances for orchestra, Op. 66: 14 minutes (1980)
 * Symphony No. 5, Op. 68: 25 minutes (1980)
 * Overture “Red Dragon”, Op. 83: 8 minutes (1982)
 * A Gloucester Fanfare for chorus, organ, brass band and orchestra, Op. 89: 4 minutes (1983)
 * Fantasy for Orchestra, Op. 92: 10 minutes (1984)
 * Sinfonietta for Chamber Orchestra, Op. 93: 20 minutes (1984)
 * Flourish for DCPS for orchestra, Op. 94: 2 minutes (1984)
 * “Kubla Khan” for soprano, tenor, chorus, brass band and orchestra, Op. 95:22 minutes (1985)
 * Organ Concerto, Op. 101: 16 minutes (1986)
 * “Armada” for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra, Op. 104: 58 minutes (1987)
 * Symphony No. 6 “A Cotswold Symphony”, Op. 109: 35 minutes (1988)
 * Trombone Concerto, Op. 114: 20 minutes + (BIS cd) (1988)
 * Variations “Bass is Beautiful” for orchestra, Op. 118: 8 minutes (1989)
 * Euphonium Concerto, Op. 120: 20 minutes (1990)
 * Horn Concerto, Op. 121: 20 minutes (1990)
 * Concert March “Happy and Glorious” for orchestra(with optional chorus), Op. 128: 7 minutes (1992)
 * Welsh Fanfare No. 1 for orchestra, Op. 132: 1 minute (1992)
 * Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, Op. 138: 29 minutes (1994)
 * Welsh Fanfare No. 2 for orchestra, Op. 140: 1 minute (1994)
 * Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, Op. 143: 20 minutes (1995)
 * “Song of Farewell” for orchestra, Op. 153: 10 minutes (1997)
 * “MM” for chorus and orchestra, Op. 157: 32 minutes (1998)
 * “A Dorset Celebration” for orchestra, Op. 159: 9 minutes (1998)
 * Symphony No. 7 “The First Two Thousand Years” for tenor, chorus and orchestra, Op. 158: 55 minutes (1999)
 * Romance for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, Op. 165: 10 minutes (1999)
 * “The Fruit of That Forbidden Tree” for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra, Op. 166: 30 minutes (2000)
 * “Holy Ground” for choirs, four saxophones and strings, Op. 172: 10 minutes (2001)
 * West of England Fanfare for orchestra, Op. 177: 3 minutes (2001)
 * Prelude “What Ho!” for orchestra, Op. 178: 6 minutes (2002)
 * “Seascapes” for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra, Op. 180: 15 minutes (2002)
 * Violin Concerto, Op. 181: 35 minutes (2002)
 * Symphony No. 8 “The Mountains of Mallorca”, Op. 184: 73 minutes (2002)
 * Symphony No. 9, Op. 185: 111 minutes (2003)
 * Symphony No. 10, Op. 190: 40 minutes (2003)
 * Symphony No. 11, Op. 195: 45 minutes (2003)
 * Symphony No. 12, Op. 197: 34 minutes (2003)
 * Fox-Trot for orchestra, Op. 198: 10 minutes (2003)
 * Symphony No. 13 “The Unlucky”, Op. 199: 65 minutes (2003)
 * Symphony No. 14 in one movement, Op. 200: 20 minutes (2003)
 * Wedding Song for soprano, chorus and orchestra, Op. 272a: 3 minutes (2003)
 * Symphony No. 15, Op. 201: 50 minutes (2003)
 * Symphony No. 16 “Songs of Mallorca” for soprano and orchestra, Op. 207: 40 minutes (2004)
 * Symphony No. 17, Op. 208: 65 minutes (2004)
 * Symphony No. 18, Op. 214: 43 minutes (2004)
 * Symphony No. 19, Op. 216: 34 minutes (2004)
 * Symphony No. 20, Op. 218: 42 minutes (2005)
 * Symphony No. 21, Op. 219: 21 minutes (2005)
 * Symphony No. 22, Op. 221: 50 minutes (2005)
 * Symphony No. 23, Op. 226: 35 minutes (2005)
 * Symphony No. 24, Op. 230: 42 minutes (2005)
 * Symphony No. 25 in one movement, Op. 232: 28 minutes (2005)
 * Symphony No. 26, Op. 233: 30 minutes (2005)
 * Symphony No. 27, Op. 235: 52 minutes (2005)
 * Symphony No. 28, Op. 237: 34 minutes (2006)
 * Symphony No. 29, Op. 238: 45 minutes (2006)
 * Concerto for Bass Trombone and Band, Op. 239: 16 minutes (2006)
 * Symphony No. 30, Op. 241: 65 minutes (2006)
 * Symphony No. 31, Op. 244: 21 minutes (2006)
 * Symphony No. 32, Op. 245: 65 minutes (2006)
 * Symphony No. 33, Op. 247: 62 minutes (2006)
 * Symphony No. 34, Op. 249: 44 minutes (2006)
 * Symphony No. 35, Op. 250: 50 minutes (2006)
 * Symphony No. 36, Op. 252: 43 minutes (2007)
 * Symphony No. 37, Op. 254: 31 minutes (2007)
 * Symphony No. 38, Op. 256: 48 minutes (2007)
 * Symphony No. 39, Op. 258: 42 minutes (2007)
 * Symphony No. 40, Op. 269: 38 minutes (2007)
 * Symphony No. 41 “Sinfonia Andalucia”, Op. 261: 70 minutes (2007)
 * Symphony No. 42 “Life, the Universe and Everything” for SATB soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 262: 155 minutes (2008)
 * Symphony No. 43, Op. 270: 31 minutes (2008)
 * Symphony No. 44, Op. 273: 30 minutes (2009)
 * Symphony No. 45 “What Ho! Symphony”, Op. 275: 25 minutes (2009)
 * Symphony No. 46 “A Dorset Symphony”, Op. 276: 43 minutes (2009)
 * Symphony No. 47 in one movement, Op. 278: 18 minutes (2009)
 * Symphony No. 48, Op. 280: 43 minutes (2009)
 * Symphony No. 49, Op. 281: 45 minutes (2009)
 * Symphony No. 50, Op. 284: 37 minutes (2009)
 * Symphony No. 51, Op. 286: 28 minutes (2009)
 * Symphony No. 52 “The Halfway”, Op. 287: 38 minutes (2009)
 * Symphony No. 53 “Sinfonia Semplice”, Op. 288: 39 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 54, Op. 289: 32 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 55, Op. 290: 28 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 56, Op. 292: 28 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 57, Op. 294: 35 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 58 in one movement, Op. 296: 22 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 59 “Percussion Symphony”, Op. 298: 29 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 60, Op. 299: 41 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 61, Op. 300: 38 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 62, Op. 302: 42 minutes (2010)
 * Symphony No. 63, Op. 303: 38 minutes (2011)
 * Symphony No. 64, Op. 305: 38 minutes (2011)
 * Symphony No. 65 “Overture, Concerto and Symphony”, Op. 306: 85 minutes (2011)
 * Symphony No. 66, Op. 311: 29 minutes (2011)
 * Symphony No. 67 “The Tuneful”, Op. 315: 36 minutes (2011)
 * Symphony No. 68, Op. 316: 34 minutes (2011)
 * Symphony No. 69, Op. 317: 40 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 70, Op. 319: 41 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 71, Op. 320: 31 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 72 “The Ghost”, Op. 322: 26 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 73, Op. 323: 37 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 74, Op. 325: 41 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 75, Op. 326: 40 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 76, Op. 334: 37 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 77, Op. 335: 32 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 78, Op. 336: 45 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 79, Op. 337: 36 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 80, Op. 338: 35 minutes (2012)
 * Symphony No. 81, Op. 339: 36 minutes (2013)
 * Symphony No. 82, Op. 341: 39 minutes (2013)
 * Symphony No. 83, Op. 343: 38 minutes (2013)
 * Symphony No. 84, Op. 344: 36 minutes (2013)
 * Symphony No. 85, Op. 348: 36 minutes (2013)
 * Symphony No. 86, Op. 350: 43 minutes (2013)
 * Symphony No. 87 “Four British Seasons” for soprano and orchestra, Op. 351: 40 minutes (2013)
 * Symphony No. 88, Op. 353: 35 minutes (2013)
 * Symphony No. 89, Op. 354: 30 minutes (2013)
 * Symphony No. 90, Op. 355: 45 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 91, Op. 356: 39 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 92, Op. 357: 40 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 93, Op. 359: 30 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 94 “The Predictable”, Op. 360: 33 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 95, Op. 361: 33 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 96, Op. 363: 31 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 97, Op. 364: 36 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 98 “Organ Symphony”, Op. 365: 37 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 99, Op. 366: 35 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 100, Op. 368: 36 minutes (2014)
 * Symphony No. 101 “The Sundial”, Op. 369: 37 minutes (2015)
 * Symphony No. 102, Op. 370: 41 minutes (2015)
 * Symphony No. 103 “The Swiss Roll”, Op. 372: 33 minutes (2015)
 * Symphony No. 104 “The Esterhazy”, Op. 373: 33 minutes (2015)
 * Symphony No. 105 “Symphony of Classical Forms”, Op. 374: 33 minutes (2015)
 * Symphony No. 106, Op. 375: 35 minutes (2015)
 * Symphony No. 107, Op. 376: 37 minutes (2015)
 * Symphony No. 108, Op. 377: 33 minutes (2015)
 * Symphony No. 109, Op. 378: 34 minutes (2015)
 * Symphony No. 110, Op. 380: 23 minutes (2016)
 * Symphony No. 111 “The Nelson”, Op. 382: 31 minutes (2016)
 * Symphony No. 112, Op. 383: 37 minutes (2016)
 * Symphony No. 113, Op. 385: 23 minutes (2016)
 * Symphony No. 114, Op. 386: 33 minutes (2017)
 * Symphony No. 115, Op. 389: 36 minutes (2017)
 * Symphony No. 116, Op. 391: 30 minutes (2017)

title: Derek Bourgeois


text:
Shipton

Shipton may refer to:

Places

 * Shipton, Gloucestershire
 * Shipton, North Yorkshire
 * Shipton, Shropshire
 * Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire
 * Shipton Brook, Buckinghamshire
 * Shipton Gorge, Dorset
 * Shipton Lee, Buckinghamshire
 * Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire
 * Shiptonthorpe, East Riding of Yorkshire
 * Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire
 * Shipton, Quebec, a former municipality that is now part of Danville, Quebec
 * Shipton, Kansas, a community in the U.S.

Other

 * Shipton (surname)
 * Shipton Hall, an historic house in Shropshire

title: Shipton


text:
Foire Brayonne

The Foire Brayonne is a music and cultural festival held each summer in Edmundston, New Brunswick since 1985. The Foire is sometimes considered the biggest French festival held in Canada outside the province of Quebec. It is usually held in August, at several locations in Edmundston.

History
The first festival was held in 1978 and up to 1985 was a 10-day event. Today the festival is running strong with five days of activities for all ages. It is held the week before the New Brunswick Civic Holiday, which is the first Monday of August.

Etymology
The name "Foire Brayonne" stems from the word "foire" which is French for fair. "Brayonne" is the feminine form of the French word "Brayon" which is the name given to residents of Edmundston and the surrounding Madawaska County area. There have been many disputes as to why this term is used.

The word is defined as someone who mixes (such as pancakes or laundry). However, some historians dispute the term when it comes to the people of Edmundston. They refer to their ancestors' harvesting of reeds from the Saint John River valley. These were known as "braye" (which they used to weave baskets and make brooms). Therefore, the term "brayon" means harvester of braye. Some believe the name may refer to the Pays de Bray region in Normandy (northwestern France). Having left this region for Quebec, the descendants made their way over generations to the Saint John River valley. The name perhaps provides a link to their native homeland.

Local dishes
Many local dishes are served during the festival such as the ploye, which is a pancake type mix of water and buckwheat flour. There is chicken stew which is chicken mixed with dumplings and potatoes. They enjoy cretons: a pork-based pate.

Although not a local dish, there's teriyaki on a stick where a thin piece of meat is dipped into a mix of teriyaki and barbecue sauce, grilled over an open fire. It was introduced in the late 90s and has become a foire favorite.

Major attractions
The foire relies on sponsorships and grants to offer a low entrance fee. A five-day pass to all shows was available for $35 (in 2014). Compared to similar festivals, the Foire is arguably one of the best deals of its kind.

People wishing to know more about the area's rich history can visit "La Promenade de la Republique", which is an exposition on how life in the area was during the Victorian era.

A large park for kids offers live shows, inflatable games, and the opportunity to paint kids' faces and have their picture taken with Typique, a child-friendly porcupine with which the region has a rich history of.

Other attractions include an outdoor mass celebrating the French culture's loyalty to the Catholic faith, a large parade, car shows, sporting competitions, and an arts and crafts flea market.

One of the Foire's major attractions has been live concerts. Here is a partial list of artists who have appeared at the Foire:

 * René Simard and Nathalie Simard (1983)
 * Véronique Béliveau (1985)
 * The Box (1986–1987)
 * Too Many Cooks (1987)
 * Glass Tiger (1989)
 * Celine Dion (1991)
 * Julie Masse (1992)
 * Les BB (1992)
 * Alannah Myles (1993)
 * Roch Voisine (1994)
 * France D'Amour (1994 and 2013)
 * Beau Dommage (1995)
 * James Ledgerwood (1995)
 * Kevin Parent (1995)
 * Éric Lapointe (1994 and 1995)
 * Moist (1997)
 * Great Big Sea (1998)
 * Plume Latraverse (1999)
 * Claude Dubois (2000)
 * Natasha St-Pier (1991 and 2003)
 * Yelo Molo (2003 and 2004)
 * Les Classels (2003)
 * Les Respectables (2003)
 * Marie-Chantal Toupin (2004 and 2010)
 * Les Trois Accords (2005)
 * Les Cowboys Fringants (2006)
 * Hugo Lapointe (2006)
 * Jonas (2006)
 * Mentake (2006 and 2009)
 * Marie Mai (2006)
 * Soldat Louis (2007)
 * Martin Fontaine (2007–2009)
 * Mobile (2007)
 * 1755 (2008)
 * Michel Pagliaro (2009)
 * Gildor Roy (2009)
 * Guy A. Lepage (2009)
 * Elizabeth Blouin-Braithwaite (2009)
 * Tailor Made Fable (2010)
 * George Belliveau (2010)
 * Collective Soul (2010)
 * Alchoolica (2012–2013)
 * Alter Ego (2012–2013)
 * Les Vickings (2013)
 * Marc Dupré (2014)
 * Jérôme Couture (2014)
 * André-Philippe Gagnon (2014)

One of the most interesting events at the Foire Brayonne is the Party du Parking. The idea for this party was brought forward by committee member Jo-Anne Volpé, who in 1987, asked city officials about having a large party in the city's parking lot. Despite their reservations, city officials agreed. Today, more than 20 years later, the Party du Parking is one of the most enduring and successful events of the Foire Brayonne. Hundreds of people from all walks of life come to this event simply to experience it, as it has a large word-of-mouth and cult following.

Every year thousands of people gather on the Friday evening of the Foire in the parking lot in downtown Edmundston. Food, beverages, and live entertainment is offered. Although sometimes imitated by other festivals in the United States and Canada, it is the largest one of its kind in New Brunswick. It has sometimes been compared to Mardi Gras due to its large gathering and party atmosphere. What makes the Party du Parking so special is that, despite having thousands of people gathered into one small spot, the party is in a very controlled environment. Very few, if any, arrests are made and almost everyone attending the Party du Parking are well behaved, despite the amount of alcohol people tend to consume on that night.

Dispute
The Foire Brayonne is sometimes criticized by the Acadian people as not promoting the culture as a vital part of French New Brunswick, as most of them feel that the term Brayons is but a legend. Despite this the foire has always included Acadian acts and encourages local Acadian talent. In 2008 the foire's closing festivities added an Acadian touch with 1755 and Le Grand Dérangement. Fayo and George Belliveau are some of the Acadian acts who performed.

The Edmundston area, despite having a large population of Acadian ancestry, has always been a separate culture from the rest of French New Brunswick. It has become the second largest majority French speaking city outside of Quebec. Most of the francophones there are from Quebec ancestry, compared to the rest of French New Brunswick which are direct descendants of the first French people to colonise North America in 1604 in what is now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Quebec was not founded until four years later.

Because of the high Quebec ancestry in the Edmundston area and its close proximity to the Quebec border, area residents are in some cases considered by Acadians as non-resident Quebecers.

Some "Brayons" do not want to be compared to Acadians or Quebecers and ardently call themselves independent "Brayons" from "P'tit Sault" (the original name for Edmundston), which designates the smaller rapids of the river.

Foire directors

 * Lise Bourgoin 1990-2001
 * Cindy Couturier 2001-2006
 * Guillaume L'Italien 2006-2008
 * Éric Thériault 2008-2011

The current director is Cindy Couturier.

title: Foire Brayonne