Portal:England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. The country is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers roughly 62%, and over 100 smaller adjacent islands. It has land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to the south-west, and the Irish sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. The population was 56,490,048 at the 2021 census. London is both the largest city and the capital.
The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The Kingdom of England, which included Wales after 1535, ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707 when the Acts of Union put the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year into effect; this resulted in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland that created the Kingdom of Great Britain.
England is the origin of many well-known worldwide exports, including the English language, the English legal system (which served as the basis for the common law systems of many other countries), association football, and the Church of England; its parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England is home to the two oldest universities in the English-speaking world: the University of Oxford, founded in 1096, and the University of Cambridge, founded in 1209. Both universities are ranked among the most prestigious in the world.
England's terrain chiefly consists of low hills and plains, especially in the centre and south. Upland and mountainous terrain is mostly found in the north and west, including Dartmoor, the Lake District, the Pennines, and the Shropshire Hills. The country's capital is London, the greater metropolitan of which has a population of 14.2 million as of 2021, representing the United Kingdom's largest metropolitan area. England's population of 56.3 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom, largely concentrated around London, the South East, and conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, and Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century. (Full article...)
William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, a philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, and became an independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Yorkshire (1784–1812). In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an Evangelical Anglican, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for reform.
In 1787, Wilberforce came into contact with Thomas Clarkson and a group of activists against the slave trade, including Granville Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton. They persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he became a leading English abolitionist. He headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for 20 years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. (Full article...)Selected article -
William Gilbert Grace MRCS LRCP (18 July 1848 – 23 October 1915) was an English amateur cricketer who was important in the development of the sport and is widely considered one of its greatest players. He was nominally amateur as a cricketer, but he is said to have made more money from his cricketing activities than any professional cricketer. He was an extremely competitive player and, although he was one of the most famous men in England, he was also one of the most controversial on account of his gamesmanship and moneymaking.
He played first-class cricket for a record-equalling 44 seasons, from 1865 to 1908, during which he captained England, Gloucestershire, the Gentlemen, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the United South of England Eleven (USEE), and several other teams. (Full article...)General images
The Pipe rolls, sometimes called the Great rolls or the Great Rolls of the Pipe, are a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, or Treasury, and its successors, as well as the Exchequer of Ireland. The earliest date from the 12th century, and the series extends, mostly complete, from then until 1833. They form the oldest continuous series of records concerning English governance kept by the English, British, Irish and United Kingdom governments, covering a span of about 700 years. The early medieval ones are especially useful for historical study, as they are some of the earliest financial records available from the Middle Ages. A similar set of records was developed for Normandy, which was ruled by the English kings from 1066 to 1205, but the Norman Pipe rolls have not survived in a continuous series like the English.
They were the records of the yearly audits performed by the Exchequer of the accounts and payments presented to the Treasury by the sheriffs and other royal officials; and owed their name to the shape they took, as the various sheets were affixed to each other and then rolled into a tight roll, resembling a pipe, for storage. They record not only payments made to the government, but debts owed to the crown and disbursements made by royal officials. Although they recorded much of the royal income, they did not record all types of income, nor did they record all expenditures, so they are not strictly speaking a budget. The Pipe Roll Society, formed in 1883, has published the Pipe rolls for the period up to 1224. (Full article...)Did you know?
- ...that the Rev. Arthur Wagner, the first curate of the Church of St. Paul, Brighton, England, commissioned stained glass windows of his mother, father and aunt for the church?
- ...that Scots' Dike was constructed by the English and the Scots in 1552 to mark the division of the Debatable Lands and thereby settle the exact boundary between the kingdoms of Scotland and England?
- ...that the famed message "England expects that every man will do his duty" is misquoted on Nelson's Column in London?
In the news
- 11 March 2024 –
- Former Conservative Party deputy chairman and Ashfield MP Lee Anderson defects to Reform UK, becoming the party's first member of parliament. Anderson was suspended by the Conservatives after claiming that London mayor Sadiq Khan was "controlled" by radical Islamists. (BBC News)
- 8 March 2024 – 2024 United Kingdom local elections
- Brenda Dacres is elected Mayor of Lewisham, becoming the first black woman directly elected mayor in England. (BBC News)
- 29 February 2024 – 2024 Rochdale by-election
- Residents in Rochdale, England, vote to elect a new Member of Parliament in a controversial by-election overshadowed by the Israel–Hamas war. (The Guardian)
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“ | An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one. | ” |
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England • Bedfordshire • Brighton • Cheshire • Cornwall • Derbyshire • Dorset • Greater Manchester • Hampshire • Lincolnshire • London • Merseyside • Northamptonshire • North East England • Sheffield • Surrey. Warwickshire • West Midlands • Worcestershire • Yorkshire
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- Requested articles: Charterhouse Lane • Renewable energy in England • Ealing Village
- Expand: Dorothy Boyd • David Troughton
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Ireland | Northern Ireland | Scotland | United Kingdom | Wales |
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