20th & 21st CENTURIES IN THE UK AND IRELAND

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 - 6 May 1910)

Was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January

1901 until his death in 1910.

He was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotta, Edward was

related to royalty throughout Europe.

He held the title of Prince of Wales before his accession to the throne.

During his mother reign, he was excluded from political power and came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite.

He travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties, and represented Britain on

visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and the Indian subcontinent in 1875 were popular

successes, but despite public approval his reputation as a playboy prince soured his relationship

with his mother.

As king, Edward fostered good relations between Britain and other European countries, especially

France, for which he was popularly called "Peacemaker", but his relationship with his nephew, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, was poor.

The Edwardian era coincided with the start of a new century and heralded significant changes in

technology and society, like steam turbine propulsion and the rise of socialism.

He died I 1910, in the midst of a constitutional crisis, resolved the following year by the Parliament

Act, which restricted the power of the unelected House of Lords.

George V(George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865-20 January 1936)

Was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 6 May 1910
until his death in 1936.
He was born during the reign of his grand mother Queen Victoria, George was the third in the line
of succession behind his father, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and his own elder brother Prince
Albert Victor. From 1877 to 1891, George served in the Royal Navy, until the unexpected death of
his elder brother in 1892 put him directly in the line for the throne.
When his father became King-Emperor of the British Empire, George was created as Prince of
Wales.

George's reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the
Indian independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape.

The Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over
the unelected House of Lords. As a result of the First World War (1914–1918), the empires of his
first cousins Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany fell, while the British
Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent.

In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, which he renamed from the
House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment. In 1924 he
appointed the first Labour ministry and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognized the
dominions of the Empire as separate, independent states within the Commonwealth of Nations.

World War I

World War I, also known as the Great War, was a conflict that happened in its majority in Europe that lasted from the 28th of July to the 11th July 1914 to the 11th November 1918, that confronted two allied sides.

On the first side, we had the triple ally of Germany, Austri-Hungary and Italy, and on the other side, Great Britain, France and the Russian Empire. 

This war supposed the loss of approximately 9 million of soldiers added to 7 million of civilians. Britain registered a total of 700.000 people between soldiers and missing people. 

After the War, Great Britain went from being the biggest investor in Europe to being the biggest debtor. 



Women Suffrage in England

Thn Great Britain woman suffrage was first advocated by Mary Wollstonecraft in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and was demanded by the Chartist movement of the 1840s. The demand for woman suffrage was increasingly taken up by prominent liberal intellectuals in England from the 1850s on, notably by John Stuart Mill and his wife, Harriet. The first woman suffrage committee was formed in Manchester in 1865.

In 1869, however, Parliament did grant women taxpayers the right to vote in municipal elections, and in the ensuing decades women became eligible to sit on county and city councils. The right to vote in parliamentary elections was still denied to women.

 In 1897 the various suffragist societies united into one National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, bringing a greater degree of coherence and organization to the movement. After the return to power of the Liberal Party in 1906, many suffragists became involved in increasingly violent actions. These women were sent to prison and continued their protests there by engaging in hunger strikes.  Meanwhile, public support of the woman suffrage movement grew in volume, and public demonstrations, exhibitions, and processions were organized in support of women’s right to vote.

The need for the enfranchisement of women was finally recognized by most members of Parliament from all three major parties, and the resulting Representation of the People Act was passed by the House of Commons in June 1917 and by the House of Lords in February 1918. 

Under this act, all women age 30 or over received the complete franchise. In 1928 the voting age for women was lowered to 21 to place women voters on an equal footing with male voters.

The Republic of Ireland

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World War II 

The United Kingdom, along with most of its Dominions and Crown colonies declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939, after the German invasion of Poland. War with Japan began in December 1941, after it attacked British colonies in Asia. The Axis powers were defeated by the Allies in 1945.

Although the UK had increased military spending and funding prior to 1939 in response to the increasing strength of Germany under the Nazi Party, its forces were still weak by comparison, especially the British Army. Only the Royal Navy – at the time the largest in the world – was of a greater strength than its German counterpart. The British Army only had nine divisions available for war, whereas Germany had seventy-eight and France eighty-six.

Anticipating the outbreak of another world war, the Polish Navy implemented the Peking Plan in late August and early September 1939, moving three modern destroyers, Burza (Storm), Błyskawica (Lightning), and Grom (Thunder) to Britain; the ships served alongside (and under the command of) the Royal Navy for the remainder of the war.

 On 3 September, the UK and France declared war on Germany as obliged by the Anglo-Polish military alliance. The declaration was made 24 hours after the UK had issued an ultimatum to Germany to withdraw all German forces from Poland. After the fall of Poland, the Royal Navy was strengthened by the arrival of two Polish submarines Orzeł (Eagle) and Wilk (Wolf). The Polish Navy in the United Kingdom was then supplemented with leased British ships.

The British Army immediately began dispatching the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to support France. At first only regular troops from the pre-war Army made up its numbers. In 1940, however, men of the Territorial Army (TA) divisions being mobilized in the UK were sent. In the end, the BEF had I, II and III Corps under its command, controlling 200,000 men. The Royal Air Force (RAF) also sent significant forces to France at the start of hostilities. Some were French Army cooperation squadrons to help with matters like reconnaissance for the French Army. Others were Hawker Hurricane squadrons from RAF Fighter Command. Separately, Bomber Command sent the Advanced Air Striking Force, composed of squadrons flying the Fairey Battle and other machines that did not have the range to reach Germany from the UK.

Class 2. Polytical and educational system. Media

Political System

THE CROWN

The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their sub-divisions (such as Crown dependencies, provinces, or states). The term is a metonym for both the state and the reigning monarch.

A corporation sole, the Crown is the legal embodiment of executive, legislative, and judicial governance in the monarchy of each country. These monarchies are united by the personal union of their monarch, but they are independent states. The concept of the Crown developed first in England as a separation of the literal crown and property of the nation state from the person and personal property of the monarch. It spread through English and later British colonisation and is now rooted in the legal lexicon of the United Kingdom, its Crown dependencies, and the other 15 independent realms. It is not to be confused with any physical crown, such as those of the British regalia.

The term is also found in expressions such as "Crown land", which some countries refer to as "public land" or "state land"; as well as in some offices, such as Minister of the Crown, Crown Attorney, and Crown Prosecutor.

The House Of Lords

The House of Lords of the United Kingdom, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster. Officially, the full name of the house is the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.

Unlike the elected House of Commons, all members of the House of Lords (excluding 90 hereditary peers elected among themselves and two peers who are ex officio members) are appointed. The membership of the House of Lords is drawn from the peerage and is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. The Lords Spiritual are 26 bishops in the established Church of England. Of the Lords Temporal, the majority are life peers who are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. However, they also include some hereditary peers including four dukes.

Membership was once an entitlement of all hereditary peers, other than those in the peerage of Ireland, but under the House of Lords Act 1999, the right to membership was restricted to 92 hereditary peers. Very few of these are female since most hereditary peerages can only be inherited by men.

Today's Parliament of the United Kingdom largely descends, in practice, from the Parliament of England, though the Treaty of Union of 1706 and the Acts of Union that ratified the Treaty in 1707 created a new Parliament of Great Britain to replace the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. This new parliament was, in effect, the continuation of the Parliament of England with the addition of 45 MPs and 16 Peers to represent Scotland.

The House of Lords developed from the "Great Council" (Magnum Concilium) that advised the King during medieval times. This royal council came to be composed of ecclesiastics, noblemen, and representatives of the counties of England and Wales (afterwards, representatives of the boroughs as well). The first English Parliament is often considered to be the "Model Parliament" (held in 1295), which included archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, and representatives of the shires and boroughs of it.

The power of Parliament grew slowly, fluctuating as the strength of the monarchy grew or declined. For example, during much of the reign of Edward II (1307–1327), the nobility was supreme, the Crown weak, and the shire and borough representatives entirely powerless. In 1569, the authority of Parliament was for the first time recognised not simply by custom or royal charter, but by an authoritative statute, passed by Parliament itself.

During the reign of Edward II's successor, Edward III, Parliament clearly separated into two distinct chambers: the House of Commons (consisting of the shire and borough representatives) and the House of Lords (consisting of the bishops, abbots and peers). The authority of Parliament continued to grow, and during the early 15th century both Houses exercised powers to an extent not seen before.

 The Lords were far more powerful than the Commons because of the great influence of the great landowners and the prelates of the realm.

The 19th century was marked by several changes to the House of Lords. The House, once a body of only about 50 members, had been greatly enlarged by the liberality of George III and his successors in creating peerages. The individual influence of a Lord of Parliament was thus diminished.

Education System

Primary and Secondary Education

The Education Act of 1944 guaranteed free education to every kid in Britain and at the same time this System waas divided in Primary and Secondary education.

It needs to be remembered that in this century, women began to have a different role in the society. Actually, as happened in other countries, boys and girls were educated separately. Once education was divided in Primary and Secondary, the age of being able to leave school was elevated to 15 years (1947) and lately to 16 (1972).

Boys and girls started to be educated the same way, in the same schools, mixed. This caused a  lot of controversy because lot of people kept thinking that girls weren't as clever as boys and that they had to study different subjects. 

Trandformaton of Universities

After the Second World War, there was an enormous expansion in the demand for higher education. A final public university college was set up in Keele in 1949; this was the first university college to receive full degree awarding powers as a college rather than on becoming a university (St David's College, Lampeter, held limited degree awarding power from the mid 19th century, but could only award BA and BD degrees).

Between 1948  and 1967 all of the university colleges (except those that had become colleges of the University of London) achieved independent university status.