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View Full Version : Leamington Spa, famous people & events of a bygone era.



Lex
09-11-2014, 04:14 PM
And a good thing it has been saved: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-29938545

Margaret
09-11-2014, 07:14 PM
I'm pleased it was saved. I would have thought that it would have been grade listed at least. It is right in the vicinity of our former address as well.

rebbonk
10-11-2014, 03:47 PM
That's quite interesting. Whittle set up Power Jets in Lutterworth and they used part of the Bitteswell airfield that I later joined as an apprentice.

Whilst many aren't aware of it, we owe Whittle a great debt. If it wasn't for him and his perseverance the package holidays and subsequent cheap air travel developments from the 60s would unlikely have happened.

Unfortunately, Whittle (and the greater British public) was betrayed by the government when they handed over the jet engine patents to the USA (part of the deal on the USA joining WW2 on our side!) and later sold engines (which were then back-engineered) to the USSR.

Margaret
10-11-2014, 05:08 PM
That is most interesting and doesn't surprise me in the least about the government.
It is pretty well known we have given a lot of confidential stuff away, and the question to ask is, would they give it to us?
Look what BMW did to Rover.

rebbonk
10-11-2014, 05:54 PM
Look what BMW did to Rover.

I was there! Absolutely disgraceful, but it was when the government sold Austin Rover Group off to British Aerospace that the real damage was done. The long standing relationship with Honda virtually ended overnight. BAe just ripped the cash-flow out of the business, before selling on to BMW.

The BMW relationship was never going to work because BMW was run by engineers not accountants. The other issue was that the Rover management did nothing but lie to BMW about the true state of affairs. If BMW had acted sooner and gotten rid of most of the management, they might have been able to make a success of things. - Always assuming they wanted to!

It was always suspected that BMW only ever wanted the 4X4 technology, but they also took the Mini which was Rover designed. BMW couldn't design and package it for what they wanted to sell it for, so they dumped it on us, telling us that it was to be sold for quite a low price. We did the job, BMW then took it, along with the credit and sold it at a much higher price!

The history of Rover Group is quite interesting...

Dun Scotus
10-11-2014, 08:59 PM
That's all absolutely spot on.
It just doesn't work alliances between ourselves and the Germans, and that is not in any spirit of animosity, but a simple provable fact. They dominate the entire EU and run it as their fiefdom. The entire EU is a vast prison house that serves German industry and banks.
On the Longbridge issue, my understanding is that the deal with Honda was working out quite well , but then we've always had useless management on the whole in this country.
They seem to go on no end of courses and learn absolutely nothing. I remember the days of Sir Michael Edwardes, who was cracked up by the government to be this brilliant wonderman and all that happened was that the company hit a new low with him in charge.
The labour government were pumping in a bit of money , but the root problems were not being addressed. A lot of the union militancy was effect and not cause. We just simply could not find and still can't find compentent managers. The workforce resented being pushed around and their views being completely ignored when they were the ones actually doing the job.
We just have this problem in this country that I have no other way of describing than to say it is a kind of class problem , or closed minds and a lot of arrogance of sections of society that refuse to listen.

Margaret
15-11-2014, 07:09 AM
Sir Bernard Spilsbury, 1877 – 1947

http://www.leamingtonhistory.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Spilsbury03.jpg

Spilsbury in his laboratory.




http://www.leamingtonhistory.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/rlwybridge1910-300x188.jpg




Few if any of those waiting for their prescriptions in a south Leamington chemist will know that the father of modern forensic medicine was born in the flat upstairs.

On 16 May 1877 the manufacturing chemist James Spilsbury’s first child was born in the flat above his shop at 35 Bath Street, Leamington Spa (4th shop on the left of the image above). Christened Bernard Henry, James’ new-born son later became Britain’s most eminent forensic pathologist and in 1923, the recipient of a knighthood. He was educated at Leamington College before gaining a place at at Magdalen College, Oxford. He went up to Oxford in 1896 with the ambition of becoming a doctor in general practice. His grandmother tried hard to convince the young Bernard that his chosen career would not be hugely profitable and that his future would be more assured if he were articled to Brookfields, the large drapers in Stafford.

After a somewhat undistinguished career at Oxford, Bernard came down at the end of Trinity Term in 1899 and began his professional life as a Pathologist at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London.




Bernard Spilsbury (left, in his laboratory in 1922) became the foremost medical detective of his day and was called to give evidence for the Crown in over two hundred murder trials in England over a period of thirty years. He was a key witness in the trial of the infamous Dr Crippen in 1910 and is known to have carried out over 25,000 autopsies during his career. His pronouncements were treated almost with reverence and an aura of infallibility grew up around him. Sir Sydney Smith, a fellow forensic pathologist, wryly observed that ‘[Spilsbury's] belief in himself was so strong that he would not conceive the possibility of error in his observations or interpretation’.

Bernard Spilsbury’s star had begun to shine less brightly by the time of the Second World War, and a series of family bereavements allied to his own declining health led to him taking his life just before Christmas 1947 by inhaling coal gas from a bunsen burner in his laboratory. His remains were cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.