title: Bessie Braddock

texts:
 formed local Labour Party to form a united labour front. Labour MP

Labour government 1945–51

Despite some opinion polls indicating a Labour lead, most commentators expected that Winston Churchill's prestige would ensure a comfortable Conservative victory in the July 1945 general election. Before polling day, The Manchester Guardian surmised that "the chances of Labour sweeping the country and obtaining a clear majority ... are pretty remote". The News of the World predicted a working Conservative majority, while in Glasgow a pundit forecast the result as Conservatives 360, Labour 220, Others 60. The expectations of a Labour victory in Liverpool Exchange were not high, but <mask>'s chances were boosted by the poor local record of the sitting member, Colonel Shute, and she herself was confident. Defying most forecasts, across the country Labour won 393 seats, and with an overall majority of 146, Clement Attlee formed the first majority Labour government.<mask> won Liverpool Exchange with a majority of 665 from 16,000 votes cast. In an assessment of the new MPs, the Daily Express described <mask> as "a character among the Labour women. Very forthright in her speech, strong in her Labour faith ... never hesitates to call a spade a spade". Physically imposing—she admitted to weighing 15 stone (210 pounds, 95 kg)—she made an impact with her maiden speech on 17 October 1945, during a debate on the national housing shortage. After taunting the Conservative opposition by claiming to have "filched" the Exchange seat—"the prize Division of the [Liverpool] Tory Party"—she made an impassioned plea to the new Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, for immediate measures to improve the slum housing conditions in Liverpool, and throughout the country: "Particularly in industrial areas, people are living in flea-ridden, bug-ridden, rat-ridden, lousy hell-holes". She ended her speech with a promise that she and other Labour back-benchers would continue to agitate until the conditions in which many were forced to live, "as a result of having been represented for so long by the Conservative Party", were removed. <mask>'s aggressive anti-Toryism was frequently in evidence during her first years in parliament, especially when she could attribute to them the economic miseries of her Liverpool constituents.In a Commons debate on 28 March 1946 she welcomed the government's decision to close the Liverpool Cotton Association, which she denounced as "the bulwark of the Tory administration in Liverpool", nothing more than a group of financiers who gambled with the industry in order to make profits for themselves. On 1 May 1947 The Manchester Guardian, reporting the chaotic Commons scenes during the divisions following a debate on the nationalisation of the railways, recorded that "Mrs E.M. <mask> ... danced a jig as she moved over to the Opposition benches where she occupied the seat usually used by Mr Churchill." When the Bolton Evening News called her performance "nauseating, a sorry degradation of democratic discussion" she sued the newspaper for defamation. She lost the case, and a subsequent appeal was unsuccessful. In 1947 <mask> was elected to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC). At the time she was generally identified with the left wing of the party, and was associated with a grouping known as the "Socialist Fellowship", which espoused a programme of colonial freedom, workers' control and reduced arms expenditure. She resigned from the Fellowship in 1950, along with fellow-MPs Fenner Brockway and Ellis Smith, when it condemned the United Nations intervention in the Korean War.She continued her wholehearted campaigning on behalf of the poorest in the country, pleading with parliament to "remember the queues outside the Poor Relief offices", and castigating the "New Look" fashion of 1948 as wasteful, "the ridiculous whim of idle people". <mask>'s fiery reputation did not harm her electorally; in the February 1950 general election, with the Exchange constituency greatly increased by boundary changes, her majority rose to 5,344. Nationally, Labour lost 76 seats, and its parliamentary majority was reduced to five. Attlee's second government was short-lived; in the October 1951 general election <mask> increased her personal majority again, to 6,834, but nationally Labour was defeated by the Conservatives and went into opposition. Outside her political duties <mask>, a keen fan of boxing, accepted the honorary presidency of the Professional Boxers' Association, and was a passionate defender of the sport. Her enthusiasm arose in part from her experiences as a juvenile court magistrate; she believed that the sport fostered character and mutual respect. She was frequently at odds with her parliamentary colleague Edith Summerskill, a physician who wrote the anti-boxing tract The Ignoble Art, and campaigned for the sport's abolition.1950s: Rightward shift
After leaving Socialist Fellowship, <mask> moved steadily towards the centre and right of her party, distancing herself from colleagues with whom she had earlier found common cause. She did not support Aneurin Bevan when he resigned from the government in April 1951 over the introduction of National Health Service charges, and later asserted that, by making dissidence fashionable, Bevan had "weakened the [Labour] National Executive to the point where it could no longer deal effectively with infiltrating Trotskyists and Communists". In 1955 her opposition to the Bevanite faction was such that she supported efforts by Hugh Gaitskell and Herbert Morrison to have Bevan expelled from the party. She regularly attacked the Labour left at party conferences, and in 1952 was involved in scuffles with other delegates after the unexpected success of Bevanite candidates in the NEC elections. Also in 1952, <mask>'s volatile temperament caused her to become the first woman member to be suspended from the House of Commons, after she repeatedly protested to the Deputy Speaker for failing to call her during a debate on the textile industry, a matter of great concern to her constituents. In general, however, her forthright attitude won her cross-party respect, and in 1953 she was appointed by Churchill (who had returned as prime minister in 1951) to the Royal Commission on Mental Health, otherwise known as the Percy Commission, whose work led to the Mental Health Act 1959. <mask>'s increasingly centrist stance troubled party members in Liverpool Exchange, where the Bevanite faction was generally popular.In 1954 the local party passed a motion requesting that she step down before the next general election. This was rejected by the NEC, who believed that Bessie was a national electoral asset. Shortly before the May 1955 general election the Exchange party tried again, and voted by 40 to 39 to deselect her. <mask>, convinced that this vote had been rigged, appealed to the NEC, who set the decision aside and imposed her on the constituency. These party machinations had no effect on <mask>'s popularity with the voters; in the election on 26 May, despite the intervention of a left-wing Independent Socialist candidate, she increased her majority to 7,186. Nevertheless, nationally the Conservatives retained power with an increased parliamentary majority. In the municipal elections held that same month, Labour won control of Liverpool's council for the first time; <mask> became council leader.<mask> gave up her St Anne's ward seat, after 25 years, but remained on the council as a co-opted alderman. Campaigns and controversies, 1956–59
In May 1956 <mask>'s concerns about the treatment of prisoners in Walton Prison led to an investigation by Sir Godfrey Russell Vick, which revealed numerous instances of violence by members of the prison staff, and brought about reforms. In July that year, during a home affairs debate, <mask> demanded tougher regulations on the supply and licensing of air pistols, which under the existing law were readily available to juveniles. She alarmed the house by brandishing two such pistols which, she explained, she had confiscated in the course of her duties as a juvenile court magistrate. When rebuked by the Deputy Speaker, she replied that she had deliberately used shock tactics, reprising her earlier council chamber argument that "no one takes any notice unless someone does something which is out of order, or is unusual". She also campaigned for the rights of larger women to obtain fashionable clothes; using her substantial 50" – 40" – 50" measurements to advantage, she took part in a fashion show aimed at the larger-than-average woman. In 1956, as part of a Liverpool council delegation, the Braddocks visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of the mayor of Odessa, a city with which Liverpool had informal fraternal links.Her overall impression of the country was of drabness and oppression, with welfare provision generally well below British levels, although she conceded that medical facilities were excellent. Before returning home she informed the mayor of Odessa that "after forty years of socialism ... you haven't achieved half of what we have in Britain". In the later 1950s an issue arose which tarnished the reputations of both Braddocks in the eyes of much of Liverpool's Welsh community and the people of Wales. In 1955 Liverpool council applied for the compulsory purchase of land in the Tryweryn Valley, Merionethshire, North Wales, for the construction of a reservoir to serve Liverpool's increasing needs for water—some 65 million gallons a day. The proposal would mean the flooding of the small village of Capel Celyn, and several farms. On 7 November a deputation led by the Plaid Cymru president Gwynfor Evans sought to address the council in a plea for a change in policy. According to <mask>'s biographer Ben Rees, while Evans was speaking, <mask> banged on the table and joined other councillors in insulting Evans and demanding that he "go back to Wales".In July 1957, when the enabling legislation reached its second House of Commons reading, <mask> described the scheme as regional rather than local, and claimed that some parts of Wales would benefit from it. The land to be flooded in the Tryweryn Valley was not, she said, of high agricultural value, and "nothing was done that was not agreed to by the tenants in the area". The bill became law, and construction began in 1959, but protests and demonstrations continued until the reservoir's opening in 1965. The slogan Cofiwch Dryweryn ("Remember  Tryweryn") was coined by nationalists, says Rees, as "a reminder of Liverpool's greed and lack of sensitivity". In October 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the reservoir's completion, protestors demonstrated around the statue of Bessie at Liverpool Lime Street station. In the October 1959 general election the Conservatives, now led by Harold Macmillan, increased their majority in parliament to 100 seats. In Liverpool Exchange Bessie defied the national swing, and increased her proportion of the vote.On a reduced turnout her personal majority fell slightly, to 6,971. Later career, 1960–68
In 1961 <mask>'s aldermanic term on Liverpool's council expired. That year, the Conservatives briefly took control of the council, and used their majority to block her reappointment. This ended 31 years' service on the council. In 1963, when Labour regained control, she did not seek re-instatement. The year 1963 saw the publication of The Braddocks, in which <mask> made a sustained attack on communism and Trotskyism: "The purpose of this book is to bring home to the rank and file how wide that influence is ... unless positive steps are taken by the workers themselves ... democracy will be dead". Reviewing the book for the Socialist Standard, Lawrence Weidberg thought it gave a useful picture of early 20th century working-class life in Liverpool, but concluded that "from the evidence of this book the Braddocks qualified fully for the role of blind leaders of the blind".On 12 November 1963 <mask> died of a heart attack at the age of 71, while attending an official function in Liverpool. The October 1964 general election brought Labour a narrow victory under Harold Wilson, while in Liverpool Exchange, <mask> achieved her best personal majority to date, 9,746. She did not take a post in the new government; according to The Guardian she was offered a job, but declined on the grounds of health and age. Although she fought the next election, in March 1966, and held Liverpool Exchange easily, for the final six years of her parliamentary life she was relatively inactive and often absent through illness. Her last contribution in the House was on 27 January 1969, a question regarding facilities for disabled drivers. Final years and death
In 1968 <mask> became vice chairman (and therefore chairman-elect) of the Labour Party. However, in February 1969 she collapsed with exhaustion and was hospitalised.In August she resigned from the NEC on health grounds, thus forgoing her succession to the party chairmanship. In September she announced that she did not intend to contest the next general election, and would retire from politics, a decision which shocked and disappointed her constituents. In April 1970 she was awarded the freedom of the City of Liverpool, the first woman thus honoured. <mask> formally left parliament at the dissolution before the June 1970 general election; on 13 November 1970 she died in Liverpool's Rathbone Hospital, at the age of 71. At her funeral service held a few days later at Anfield Crematorium, in the course of his tribute, Harold Wilson summed her up thus: "She was born to fight for the people of the docks, of the slums, of the factories and in every part of the city where people needed help". The service was non-sectarian in accordance with her atheism. Appraisal

At the time of her death, commentators described <mask> as one of the most notable political personalities of her time, and perhaps the best-known woman in Britain after Queen Elizabeth II.She was especially appreciated in Liverpool, where much of her campaigning zeal for better housing and healthcare was concentrated. Widely known and remembered as "Battling <mask>", thirty years after her death she was placed eighth in a BBC poll of "great Merseysiders". <mask> was renowned for the sharpness of her tongue, either in pursuit of her campaigns or in denouncing her enemies. She frequently used inflammatory, colourful language, once describing an opposing councillor as a "blasted rat", and another time telling the Tory majority that she was willing "to take a machine gun to the lot of you". In contrast to this aggressive public, <mask>'s private life was unostentatious. She did not smoke or drink, dressed conventionally and holidayed modestly in Scarborough. Nevertheless, she enjoyed the company of many glamorous friends from the worlds of show business and boxing.Towards perceived adversaries, <mask> showed neither patience nor respect, especially those with whom she had once shared common ground on the far left. Apart from her attacks on Bevan, she displayed particular scorn for the future Labour Party leader Michael Foot, whose practice in the 1950s of writing articles attacking the Labour leadership for right-wing newspapers was, she thought, disloyal. A much reported exchange between her and Churchill has her accusing him of being drunk, and him concurring but adding: "My dear you are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly"—or similar words. There is no reliable evidence that any such exchange took place; despite its popularity, commentators are generally sceptical. In 1984, Radio City, an independent Liverpool radio station, broadcast a 4-part dramatisation of Jack and <mask> <mask>'s lives. <mask> <mask> is commemorated in Liverpool by the statue in Lime Street Station, and by a blue plaque erected at her modest home in ZigZag Road. In a 2014 Fabian Society essay the Labour MP Lisa Nandy wrote that <mask> "brought her experiences of life in the slums of Liverpool right into the heart of Westminster.Now, more than ever, we need the voices of working women to be heard in parliament". Notes and references

Notes

Citations

Books

Newspapers and journals

Online

External links

 Watch Anglia News from 1962 with <mask> speech recorded in Norfolk

1899 births
1970 deaths
Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers-sponsored MPs
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1945–1950
UK MPs 1950–1951
UK MPs 1951–1955
UK MPs 1955–1959
UK MPs 1959–1964
UK MPs 1964–1966
UK MPs 1966–1970
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Liverpool constituencies
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
Councillors in Liverpool
20th-century British women politicians
English atheists
English socialists
English people of Scottish descent
Industrial Workers of the World members
Labour Party (UK) councillors
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for constituencies in Lancashire
Women councillors in

masks:
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Braddock
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Jack Braddock
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Jack Braddock
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Bessie
Braddock
Bessie
Braddock
Bessie
Braddock


title: Grigorij Richters

type: original

texts:
<mask><mask> (born 21 May 1987) is a director, activist, producer and official Forbes Council member. He directed the feature film 51 Degrees North and co-founded the global awareness movement Asteroid Day with astrophysicist and Queen guitarist Brian May. <mask> was Kevin Spacey's filmmaker-in-residence at the Old Vic Theatre and activist Stephen Sutton's documentarian before Sutton's death in 2014. He filmed and produced his first documentary at the age of 11. He also walked from Paris to Berlin to advocate for refugee children who are stuck in Greek refugee camps. Biography
Born and raised in Hamburg, Germany, <mask> has been making films since he was old enough to hold a camera. He became a child model at the age of two.His childhood home had access to the river Alster, a right tributary of the Elbe river in Northern Germany. At the age of seven, he set up a stand at the river and started selling hot dogs and drinks to people on boats, making him over one thousand Euros on a good day, enough money to buy expensive camera equipment. In 2003, he moved to the UK and attended the sixth-form college Hurtwood House where he earned the school's "Best Director" award. In 2003 he directed his first commercial for the fitness and wellness chain Meridian SPA

In 2004, he used the money he saved from his days as a child model and directed a short film called "Dean's Life" which ran at several festivals. German actor Mario Adorf was originally attached to play the character "Ashriel" but eventually dropped out due to a conflict in his schedule. In 2006, he worked as an assistant at the Berlin-based production company Egoli Tossell Film where he helped to secure the music rights for Paul Verhoeven's film Black Book and helped cast Helen Mirren in The Last Station after Meryl Streep dropped out. That same year he directed a short film, IMAGINE, while studying direction under Academy Award-winning Czech film director Miloš Forman at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.In 2007 he moved to New York City where he worked as a consultant for MTV on shows like the MTV Music awards while he developed the concept for a TV show with VH1. His apartment was overlooking the Hudson River. When Chesley Sullenberger landed the plane on the Hudson River, Richters saw it and filmed it. In 2010 he moved to London where he started working for Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic Theatre. During this time he also directed his first feature film 51 Degrees North which lead to the creation of the United Nations Asteroid Day. The IAU renamed small body 8664 Grigorijrichters after him for co-founding Asteroid Day. In 2020 he got Married during Covid 19 Pandemic in a small private ceremony.Stephen Sutton
In 2013, while working for Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic theatre in London he was hired by UEFA to film the Opening Ceremony of the Champions League Final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund at Wembley Stadium. During the rehearsals he met Stephen Sutton who was one of many drummers during the Opening Ceremony. <mask> and Sutton quickly became friends. Richters' production company Films United started managing Sutton's website, helping him run his social media and produced a documentary about his life which still hasn't been finished. After Sutton's death in 2014, Richters gave several interviews on his behalf. 51 Degrees North
Richters began working on his debut feature film 51 Degrees North in 2010. It took him five years to make the film on a €10,000 budget.Synopsis
Damon Miller is a filmmaker grappling with the pressures of an impoverished profession and a dissolving relationship. One routine assignment will change his life as he is involved in the disturbing research into Near-Earth Objects. Production highlights
While filming on Tower Bridge, a bus driver believing one of the actors to be carrying a bomb released the bus UNDER ATTACK signal and a counter-terrorism squad was called. For the climactic moment of the movie, the producers cast 600 Extras and asked them to act as if the world ended on a Saturday Night at Piccadilly Circus. To everyone's surprise 1500 Extras showed up and an additional 1000 passers-by ended up being in some of the shots. This made the production the second largest film shoot at Piccadilly Circus and the low-budget movie with the most Extras in history. Richters met QUEEN guitarist Dr. Brian May in late 2013.After watching an edit of the film, May agreed to compose the music for the film. They recorded the music in March 2014 at London's Sarm Studios. Release
The first private screening of the film took place in September 2014 at the Starmus Festival. The screening was attended by Stephen Hawking, Alexei Leonov, Richard Dawkins and May. The official premier took place on 30 June 2015 at the Science Museum in London. Discovery Channel bought the rights to the film for one year and released the film worldwide in 2015. It became their first ever scripted film.Asteroid Day
After screening his feature film 51 Degrees North at the Starmus Festival in 2014 he met Stephen Hawking who inspired Richters to create a global awareness day. Just a few months after the festival he teamed up with Brian May, President of B612 Danica Remy and Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart to create Asteroid Day. On 6 December 2016, the United Nations General Assembly declared 30 June as International Asteroid Day. #SpaceConnectsUs
In response to the Coronavirus crisis in 2020, Richters organised #SpaceConnectsUs with the European Space Agency, Asteroid Day and Markus Payer. "They teamed up to connect Europe and the world with astronauts, scientists and world-famous performers, bringing a message of hope and support for everyone faced with the Coronavirus crisis," it reads on the Asteroid Day website. Helping refugees

One million steps for refugees
On 27 October 2018 Richters started walking from Paris to Berlin, making over one million steps, to raise awareness about 1,000 unaccompanied children who live in refugee camps such as Moria Refugee Camp in Greece. His initiative is supported by Queen guitarist Dr. Brian May, influencers Lisa and Lena, astronaut Chris Hadfield, Stephen Fry but also politicians like German state minister Michael Roth.After arriving in Berlin on December 9, the German government agreed to finding a solution for the children. We Are The Children
In March 2019 <mask> teamed up with British producer Danielle Turkov Wilson and German filmmaker Uwe Praetel. Together they launched the #WeAreTheChildren campaign. The three met while Richters was walking from Paris to Berlin, in 2018. On 20 March 2019, Italian MEP Brando Benifei and President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani hosted an event with the group at Parliament in Brussels. The goal of the event was to ask European MEPs and Government leaders to relocate the 1,000 children from Greek refugee camps to other European countries. At the centre of the campaign is a music video for the QUEEN song Is this the world we created...?which was co-written by Brian May and Freddie Mercury in 1984. The campaigners have asked the public to record themselves lip-syncing to the song. The video was premiered in Parliament on 20 March 2019. On 28 March 2019, the video was released online across all QUEEN social media channels and the video platform TikTok. Terror in Hanau
After a far-right terror attack in Hanau on 19 February 2020, Richters organised a protest in memory of the victims. References

External links

1987 births
Living people
Film directors from Hamburg

masks:
Grigorij S
. Richters
Richters
Richters
Richters
Richters


title: Dudley Simpson

texts:
<mask> (4 October 1922 – 4 November 2017) was an Australian composer and conductor. He was the Principal Conductor of the Royal Opera House orchestra for three years and worked as a composer on British television. He worked on the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who, for which he composed incidental music during the 1960s and 1970s. When <mask> died aged 95 in 2017, The Guardian wrote that he was "at his most prolific as the creator of incidental music for Doctor Who in the 1960s and 70s, contributing to 62 stories over almost 300 episodes – more than any other composer." Among his television work was the music for Moonstrike (1963), theme music for The Brothers (1972), The Tomorrow People (1973), Moonbase 3 (1973), The Ascent of Man (1973) and Blake's 7 (1978). He also composed music for several plays from the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Early life and career
<mask> was born in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern East.He learned piano as a child, served in New Guinea during World War II and then studied orchestration and composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne. <mask> became assistant conductor, pianist and later musical director for the Borovansky Ballet Company, forerunner to The Australian Ballet. He moved to the UK and after a season as guest conductor at Covent Garden, he became Principal Conductor of the Royal Opera House orchestra for three years. He accompanied the touring section of the Royal Ballet with Margot Fonteyn as principal ballerina. <mask> started working for the BBC in 1961. Music for science fiction television

Doctor Who (1963)
<mask>'s first work on Doctor Who was during William Hartnell's era as the First Doctor in Planet of Giants, in 1964, but he is primarily associated with the programme in the 1970s. He also appeared on screen as a music hall conductor in the Fourth Doctor story The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977) at the invitation of Philip Hinchcliffe, who was the producer at the time.<mask> had to be paid a special fee for this appearance, as he was a member of the Musicians' Union and not Equity. When John Nathan-Turner became producer of Doctor Who in 1980, he decided that the music needed to be updated, and took <mask> out for a meal telling him how much he appreciated his work on Doctor Who but that it would no longer be required as he intended to have the BBC Radiophonic Workshop provide music from that point. While <mask> was contracted to score Shada, the unfinished nature of that production meant he never started work. As a result, his last broadcast work on Doctor Who was for The Horns of Nimon. In 1993 <mask>'s music for five Doctor Who serials from the early Fourth Doctor era was released on an album called Pyramids of Mars. In the 2017 restoration of Shada, a dedication to <mask> was shown in the end credits. Blake's 7 (1978)
In 1978 the BBC launched a new science fiction series, Blake's 7, produced by former Doctor Who director David Maloney.It ran for 4 series and 52 episodes, created by Welsh writer Terry Nation, set in a fictional spaceship, known as the Liberator (Series 1 to Series 3) and Scorpio (Series 4), manned by the following crew  members: Roj Blake (Gareth Thomas), Jenna Stannis (Sally Knyvette), Kerr Avon (Paul Darrow), Vila Restal (Michael Keating), Olag Gan (David Jackson), Cally (Jan Chappell) Dayna Mellanby (Josette Simon), Del Tarrant (Steven Pacey) and Soolin (Glynis Barber), plus the supercomputers: Zen, Orac and Slave, all voiced by (Peter Tuddenham) and the villains: Travis (Stephen Greif in Series 1), (Brian Croucher in Series 2) and Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce). <mask> provided the theme music for the series and was also responsible for the incidental music for 50 of the episodes that were broadcast from 2 January 1978 to 21 December 1981. The two exceptions are the episode entitled "Duel" (the eighth episode of series one) for which director Douglas Camfield chose to use stock music, and "Gambit" (the eleventh episode of series two), which was scored by Elizabeth Parker of the Radiophonic Workshop, the special sound creator of series two to four. The Tomorrow People (1973)
<mask> composed the theme tune to the ITV-based Thames Television science fiction series The Tomorrow People (1973–1979).

masks:
Dudley George Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson
Simpson


title: Boris Naumovich Ginsburg

texts:
<mask> (June 21, 1933, Krivoy Rog — October 23, 1963, Kiev, Ukrainian SSR) was a Soviet painter and graphic artist. Biography
<mask> was born on June 21, 1933 in the city of Krivoi Rog. He spent his youth and his brief life in Kiev. From 1941 to 1944, together with his mother and younger sister, he was evacuated to Krasnodar and later to Turkmenistan. In 1947 the family joined their father in Magadan, where <mask> spent his childhood years. His talent for drawing, discovered in early childhood, brought the young man to T.G. Shevchenko Kiev Republican Art School.Having graduated, he entered the Graphic department of the   Kiev Art Institute (1952–1958). He was fortunate to have V. Kasiyan and I. Pleschinsky as his tutors, and A. Paschenko, a famous Ukrainian graphic artist and a talented teacher, as his thesis supervisor. He graduated from the Art Institute with the honours degree and in the same year the twenty-five-year-old became the member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine. While still a student, his works were exhibited at Ukraine and USSR wide exhibitions. They attracted the attention of laymen and specialists alike with their perfection of form, profound meaning and accomplished craftsmanship. During his brief life the artist managed to create, monumental in their stature and execution, a series of lithographs dedicated to creative labour: "About People of Work" (1957–1958), "The New Ukrainian Semiletka Buildings" (1959–1960), "People of the Semiletka" (1960–1961) Like the majority of Ukrainian artists of the time, he engaged with the literary classics, creating a series of works dedicated to T. Shevchenko (1961–1962), illustrations to the great poet's works and to L. Ukrainka's poetry. Despite these considerable achievements for a budding artist, in 1960-1962 he continued to study at the creative workshops of the Academy of Arts of the USSR in Kiev, under the patronage of the National Artist of the USSR Michail Deregus.Work

The artist was destined to create his entire legacy in just five years. There was no early, middle or late period in his professional life. This established gradation was compacted into five short years filled with creative search, struggle with humdrum existence, faith in his talent and irrepressible strive for perfection. At the time there were neither monographs nor extensive articles in art journals dedicated to his work, as he was just a budding young artist. All this and recognition, success and fame were just a beckoning alluring dream then. And it all was bound to happen to the artist, as, with his thesis alone, he revealed his great talent to the world. His thesis series of easel graphic works "About People of Work" (1958) demonstrated not only a rather high level of academic proficiency, but also <mask>’ own perspective on the obligatory, in those days, depiction of socialist everyday life.He brought a personality to the foreground of his graphic sheet, abandoning the stereotype of portraying "an ordinary soviet man". For the six completed lithographs of the series the artist created numerous sketches, demonstrating a wide variety of the compositional ideas and subject interpretations. Alongside genre drawings, the artist completed portraits in coal, creating an expressive gallery of manly, proud and intellectual images of steelmakers. "The New Ukrainian Semiletka Buildings" (1959–1960) is also a lithographic series, created on a commission by the Union of Artists, in which, alongside the key moments of Kremenchug Hydro Electric Station construction, a lot of attention is paid to the rank and file participants of the grandiose building project. In this series the artist emphasizes images of women, as if juxtaposing the beauty and fragility of the female figures with the surrounding construction giants. The artist also remained true to the humanistic concept of art in the third lithographic series "The People of Semiletka" (1960–1961). "Reminiscence of the Black Sea" became the most vivid and the most unconventional of the series.Through the prism of his depicting the fishermen's work one could clearly observe the unmistakable romantic notes of the European art tradition. Not only was <mask> a master of lithography, he also had a perfect command of watercolour technique; he sensed its specificities and masterfully varied intense and serene colours. It gave the artist an opportunity to create, amazing in their execution, watercolours of sea views, piers and ships at anchor. Crimean landscapes always excited <mask>’ creative imagination. The biggest attraction for him was the subtle beauty of Koktebel, which had become a magnet for creative circles when Maximillian Voloshyn settled there. The artist's refined personality, as if merging with the translucent watercolours, was expressed in the lyrical landscapes, imbued with gentle crystal fragility. Although for the artist the sea was not only primordial beauty imbued with inimitable harmony, but also a dwelling place of the manmade objects- the ships.In depiction of the latter he predominantly employs graphic techniques: coal sketching, graphite pencil, drypoint print, etching and linocut print. He is unsurpassed as regards compositional variations in depicting ships or fishermen's life. Every sheet is representative of the original nonrecurring compositional scheme, the most corresponding to realizing each concrete artistic idea. The lyrical nature of the artist's character, to a great extent, defined his perspective on the interpretation of the soviet woman-worker image. Remaining confined to the unavoidable industrial themes of the official commissions, he first and for most emphasizes the femininity in his fish factory workers, helmswomen, attendants and electricians. Even the drab shapelessness of their working uniforms is powerless to conceal it. Every work reveals to the viewer a "soviet Madonna"; slightly mysterious with her hint of a smile and averted daydreaming gaze.Perhaps she is not always beautiful, but inimitably unique, and thusly so attractive. However, his favourite and most frequently portrayed model was his wife Zoya. He could draw her endlessly: at the seaside, sleeping, lying sick in bed with a high fever, running to the skating rink, reading a book, dreaming, sad, leaning over her textbooks and exhausted after a busy working day. Everyone expresses his love as he can: writing poems, bringing flowers, showering with gifts. <mask> expressed his love with what he knew best: his countless portrait drawings of his young wife. Amongst his works there also were commissioned portraits of outstanding historical personalities: Nikolay Przhevalsky, Victor Hugo and Heinrich Heine. For each one he managed not only to convey the portrait features, but also recreate a characteristic emotional image, as some echo of their famous literary masterpieces or scientific achievements.His amazing ability to see beauty in the mundane was reflected in the artist's approach to the landscape. His pencil drawings are, indeed, unique in their invocation of the post war Kiev atmosphere. Old wooden cottages, curved streets, infrequent cars, Kudryavsky Descent, Andreevsky Descent, Podol; on these sheets the quiet city life of the 1950s is forever preserved on these sheets by the keen hand of the artist. Incidentally, whatever genre <mask> employed, he always found the trappings of life quite odious. So it is not by chance, that his cityscapes are always genuine and authentic; they win the viewer over with their sincerity and spirituality. <mask> is also concise and even fragmentary in his landscapes-miniatures. What is meant here is not size.A little forest clearing, lonely oak trees or pines on the edge of a meadow, a delicately lacy tree brunch in early spring; everything is imbued with the solemnity of being, affirmation of the beauty of the mundane. An apple tree in bloom, a little bridge over a stream and a village street are all elevated to the eternal and the beautiful in the eye of the artist. Every nation, every people has its own eternal cultural values. For the Ukrainians they are first and foremost Taras Shevchenko's and Lesya Ukrainka's poetry. <mask> was inspired not only by the literary works of the Great Kobzar, but also by his tragic destiny. It resulted in the creation of printed lithographs reflecting the most dramatic moments from the poet's life, when he was exiled by court order to a distant military outpost and banned from writing and drawing. To some degree it was reminiscent of the events in <mask>'s own life.In the artist's private archive there is a small notebook with sketches of numerous searches for various characters from T. Shevchenko's poems. The only completed works were created for the poems "The Owl" and "The Neophyte". The illustrations to Lesya Ukrainka's poems "The Sinner" and "In the Catacombs" are imbued with the unvanquished spirit. It's no coincidence that of all her poems the artist chose the ones with main themes of strong spirit, freedom or striving to break out of slavish submission even by paying the ultimate price of one's own life. These were the last works in <mask> artistic career. "It is very difficult to make people, who did not know <mask>, his inner world, fine sense of humour, cheerful laughter and secret sorrow in his eyes, encyclopaedic knowledge, complete and utter helplessness in day to day life and constant process of creative search to understand. It is a complicated task, but it is also my duty, so I will try."It was an introduction to the memoirs written by <mask>'s widow Zoya Davydovna Ginsburg. It was exclusively due to her efforts, her amazing charm and energy (despite her quite advanced years) that the name of <mask> was brought back from oblivion. She became the main instigator and organizer of three personal exhibitions (1964, 2010, 2013), the author and sponsor in creating an album dedicated to the artist life's work "<mask>, A Bright Light of a Short Life." Zoya Davydovna also wrote the most touching chapter of this book: recollections of their youth, which are paramount to coming close to understanding the work and personality of <mask>, feel his living presence, hear his words, comprehend his ideas, share his emotions and joy brought on by first success. These were the first steps of his creative life, such a promising beginning... In one of the letters to his parents he wrote: "It started snowing a little today, you could see through the window that the street was already white. The day flew by, tomorrow once again business to attend to, work.I couldn’t say anything definite about work though; everything is still at a very early stage, I don’t even know which one of my numerous ideas to choose. There are plenty of sketches; plenty of themes, there are things to work on…" 4.11.1962

Exhibitions
Exhibited since 1957. Worked in easel and printed book graphic. The main works: : "About People of Work" (1957–1958), "The New Ukrainian Semiletka Buildings" (1959–1960), "People of the Semiletka" (1960–1961) "T. G. Shevchenko" (1961–1962) and illustrations to L. Ukrainka's works (1962) and T. Shevchenko's works (1963). Link
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYbeVrF9NSA Video. Ukrainian language. Gallery

.1933 births
1963 deaths

masks:
Boris Naumovich Ginsburg
Boris Naumovich Ginsburg
Boris
Boris
Boris Ginsburg
Boris
Boris Ginsburg
Boris Ginsburg
Boris Ginsburg
Boris Ginsburg
Boris Ginsburg
Boris Ginsburg
Boris
Boris Ginsburg
Boris Ginsburg
Boris Ginsburg
Boris Ginsburg


title: Tom McHale (novelist, born 1941)

texts:
<mask> (1941 – March 30, 1982) was an American novelist. His works include Principato, Farragan's Retreat (nominated for the National Book Award), Alinsky's Diamond, School Spirit, The Lady from Boston, and Dear Friends. He was born in Avoca, Pennsylvania, and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa. He committed suicide in Florida in 1982. Early life
Thomas "<mask><mask> was  born in 1941 in Avoca, Pennsylvania located nine miles (15 km) southwest of Scranton. He was the eldest of six children from an Irish-Catholic family. His family’s Irish-American ethnicity and Roman Catholicism would become prominent elements in his novels.He worked as a caseworker for the Department of Public Assistance in Philadelphia for a brief period. He attended Jesuit Catholic schools including Scranton Preparatory (1955–1959)  and was a graduate of Temple University in the early 1960s. He went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. He had planned to be a doctor and attended medical school but changed his mind and dropped out. Career
After the success of his first novel, Principato in 1972, McHale secured the position of writer-in-residence at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, a position he held until the end of his life. Shortly before his death he was offered a teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania that was to commence in fall semester, September, 1983. McHale took an interest in writing early on, however, after attending a wedding in Israel in the late 1960s he decided to "give the writing monster inside me a chance and stayed there a year to see what I could do, to see if anything came up.I wrote a first novel. It was so bad that I tore it up into little pieces, took it out to the Negev Desert and threw it all over." Shortly after, he wrote a second novel and traveled to Paris, France, where he shared it with the widow of novelist Richard Wright. She liked what she saw and the book was later published as Principato, <mask>'s first important work. During a period of 12 years between 1970 and 1982, he produced six novels that received wide acclaim and positive reviews. In 1976, McHale noted that he "writes in longhand, then has his work transcribed by a typist he describes as 'marvelous', she actually knows the English language and corrects my spelling and punctuation." He would spend an average of 18 months working on each novel but admitted that School Spirit only took him about seven months.During that period he was living in Boston, Massachusetts, and expressed that he would like to work on a movie script next because "I'm terribly interested in film. It's such a vast medium, so many people can see a movie. A novel, however, is limited in its appeal." <mask> described his work;

By 1972, Paramount pictures was very enthused about <mask>'s first novel, Farragan's Retreat. They even hired screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. to turn the novel into a screenplay. This was during the time of Richard Nixon's election and Paramount eventually decided that the War in Vietnam was going to end soon. Because the book was about a young man who had gone to Canada to avoid the draft, the studio decided against using the story because they worried that by the time the film finally came out, the war would be over and the American public would have lost interest.As it turns out, Nixon prolonged the war, but by then Paramount had moved on. Lardner mentioned several years later, in 1982, that he regretted that Paramount dropped the project because it was the screenplay he "liked the very best that never got made." Reception
Reviewers compared <mask>'s novels to those of Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., John Updike and Philip Roth because of his black comic humor. They also saw considerable talent in his quickly growing body of work. A New York Times review in March, 1971 noted that "There are many young writers with healthy reserves of rags and chaos, some indeed with little else. What distinguishes <mask> is not only the fertility of his invention but the humanity—remarkable in a writer of 28—that penetrates even his crudest characters.". An article in Life Magazine in 1971 went on to say that "<mask> writes as if born to the craft.He imagines and schemes like a beery poet. He sees, pokes, probes. He tells fabulous jokes---<mask>'s capacity to trigger emotions ranges from laughter to compassion to cold horror. Realism, pathos, mystery, <mask> is not another new writer. He is himself." By 1976, a review from Associated Press gave much credit to the novel School Spirit for grappling with "questions that men have long pondered, questions such as the sanctity of life, guilt, punishment, redemption, but instead of creating what should have been a heavy philosophic text, he successfully produced a comic novel that makes the reader think, even as he laughs." Not all reviews were favorable.In 1971 a scathing review of Farragan's Retreat noted that "this is an absurd book that started well. Now that this talented author has this novel out of his system, we can only hope that he'll live up to his potential." Personal life
<mask> was married to <mask> and had homes in Kittery, Maine and Killington, Vermont. McHale enjoyed working with masonry in his spare time. He started in his mid-twenties by building fieldstone walls and later built fireplaces. In 1976, he proudly talked about the home in Maine, 60 miles from Boston, that he was looking forward to the construction of that summer; "It'll give me a chance to do some physical work. Outside, I'll do the masonry work on the base of the house and inside, I'll do the fireplace."<mask> committed suicide at age 40 at his sister’s home in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Bibliography
 Principato (1970) –  The novel was "almost universally hailed as a remarkable debut effort." This is religious fiction and is a story about Angelo Principato, an Italian-American Catholic social worker from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who marries an Irish-Catholic girl named Cynthia Corrigan who is the daughter of a wealthy mortician. Farragan's Retreat (1972) –  The book received even more enthusiastic reviews than Principato  and was named a finalist for the National Book Award later that year. Like his first novel, it was a story about Irish and Italian Catholics in Philadelphia. Alinsky's Diamond (1974) –  Adeptly combined satire and comedy, by then a style very familiar to <mask>. It is the story of Frances X. Murphy, an Irish-American hustler who marries into a "fine" French family.School Spirit (1976) – Explored the consequences of exposing a "long-buried secret" and was <mask>'s first suspense novel." The Lady from Boston (1978) –  Dealt with the manipulation and betrayal of a young man by a beautiful woman and was far more cynical and darker than previous works. Dear Friends (1982) –  His last written work was a deeply dark novel about a lawyer whose life unravels in a matter of days after witnessing two suicides and later discovering his firstborn child was fathered by another man. Unfinished works
 Elspath's War Canoe (1977) – A story about a young man who comes to Boston from Kansas City. He's determined to knock the world for a loop but he gets knocked instead. Awards
In 1974, <mask> was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction for Alinsky's Diamond. He also received the Thomas More Association medal, an award given annually for the most distinguished contribution to Catholic Literature for his novel School Spirit in 1976.References

External links
 <mask> at the Literary Encyclopedia

1941 births
1982 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
Temple University alumni
University of Iowa alumni
Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Suicides by carbon monoxide poisoning
1982 suicides
20th-century American male writers
Novelists from Pennsylvania

masks:
Tom McHale
Tom
" McHale
McHale
McHale
McHale
McHale
McHale
McHale
McHale
Tom McHale
McHale
Suzanne McHale
McHale
McHale
McHale
McHale
Tom McHale


title: Charles Robinson Rockwood

texts:
<mask> (born May 14, 1860) was a United States (U.S.) civil engineer, and entrepreneur. His career was in various states of the United States, particularly in the state of California. His most significant achievement was managing the construction of a canal system that transformed the Colorado Desert (in southern California  into a verdant agricultural development known as the Imperial Valley. He is also infamous for directing modifications to that same canal system which lead to the accidental creation of the Salton Sea in southern California. Early life
<mask><mask> grew up in the U.S., working on his parents farm . near Flint, Michigan. Both parents were of Puritan descent.His mother was a direct descendant of <mask>, one of the organizers of the Mayflower expedition which established the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts prior to the founding of the U.S.

From a very young age, <mask> desired a good education. In 1878 he graduated at the top of his high school class. Immediately after graduation, he enrolled at the University of Michigan in an engineering program. Unfortunately, problems with his vision forced him to drop out. He intended to return to school and complete his degree but never did. Early career
After departing the university he began working as a surveyor in various U.S. states, starting in Denver for the Rio Grande Railway in the state of Colorado. Over the course of the next few years he worked for several railroad companies in the capacity of a civil engineer.In 1889 he returned to survey work as an employee of the United States Geological Survey. A year later he became the chief engineer of an irrigation project in the state of Washington. In 1892 he quit the position and moved to California. There he did survey work in Sonora, California and the state's Colorado Desert, confirming the potential of irrigating those lands for farming. A favorable report from Rockwood on irrigating the Colorado Desert prompted his employer to create a subsidiary company named the Colorado River Irrigation Company. This company was tasked with creating a canal system that could deliver water from the Colorado River into the Colorado Desert for agricultural use. Because of the financial panic of 1893, the company failed before canal construction began.California Development Company and the Alamo Canal
In 1895 <mask> began promoting the irrigation project himself, eventually forming the California Development Company (CDC). It took several more years of effort to raise funding for the project. In March 1900, George Chaffey, known for several other successful irrigation projects, joined the CDC as an investor and engineer. Under Mr. Chaffey's direction, construction began on the first section of what would be known as the Alamo Canal (also known as the Imperial Canal) during December 1900. The canal was designed to bring water from the Colorado River to the soon to be named Imperial Valley for agricultural irrigation. Connection with the Salton Sea

During the first couple years of operation, silt deposits built up in the upper section of the Alamo Canal reducing the amount of water it could deliver to the Imperial Valley. The lack of water caused great discontent among farmers and did significant harm to the ever expanding agriculture endeavors in the valley.In order to maintain adequate water supplies for farming, <mask> was forced to dig additional channels to increase the water flow. In September 1904 <mask> directed his engineers and workers to dig the largest of these new channels, bypassing the silt clogged section of the canal. The new channel was built without control infrastructure to manage the water flow because of delays in getting permits. The new channel solved the water flow problem, making water plentiful for all of the farms in the Imperial Valley. It also created a new problem. Since there was no method to control water flow, oftentimes the amount of water delivered to the Imperial Valley was far in excess of what could be used by farmers. The unused water was allowed to flow into the Salton Sink.This marked the birth of the modern Salton Sea. The first few months of 1905 saw several large floods from the Colorado River deepen and widen the bypass channel. Initially, Rockwood was not worried about the increased water supply and saw no need to stem the flow. Later that year fall and winter flooding of the river made the opening of the channel even wider. This caused the river to shift its course. Instead of following its usual course to the Gulf of California, the entire volume of the Colorado River flowed into the canal system and onto the Imperial Valley and Salton Sink. For almost two years the river ran unchecked into the Salton Sink, creating the Salton Sea.Many attempts were made to stop the flooding, but they all failed. Finally in early 1907, with help from Edward H. Harriman of the Southern Pacific Railroad, the uncontrolled flooding was stopped. Later career
In April 1906 <mask> resigned his position as assistant manager at the CDC and became a consulting engineer for the same company. Later that year, just before the flooding of the Salton Sink was halted, he severed his ties with the CDC and moved withing California to Los Angeles. From 1906 to 1909 he worked with several different companies on various development projects in the Imperial Valley. During this time he also attempted to win compensation for assets of the CDC that the Southern Pacific Railroad had taken control of. He was not successful in his endeavors against the railroad.After 1909 <mask> relocated to the Santa Maria Valley and oversaw the construction of several railways. In November 1914 he returned to the Imperial Valley and served as the chief engineer and general manager of the newly formed Imperial Irrigation District until 1919. Achievements, recognition, and criticisms
<mask> has been referred to as the father of the Imperial Valley. The efforts he made in creating a canal system to bring water to the Colorado Desert turned the region into productive farmland. His name is ensconced on streets, parks, structures, and other locations around the Salton Sea and Imperial Valley in recognition of his contributions. Several history books blame <mask> for the flooding that occurred in the Salton Sink from 1905 to 1907. Some authors even going so far as to declare his actions criminal.While his actions did lead to the accidental flooding of the Salton Sink and creation of the Salton Sea, he made those decisions to preserve the existence of the farms in the Imperial Valley. His efforts to save the valley from drought would never have been necessary if the man in charge of construction for the Alamo Canal, George Chaffey, had followed the original plans. Unfortunately Mr. Chaffey changed the route of the canal, modified its design, and improperly constructed a headgate at Pilot Knob, California. If not for all of the mistakes made by Mr. Chaffey, <mask> would never have been forced to dig the channel that lead to the flooding and creation of the Salton Sea. Reality of the flooding in the Salton Sink and Imperial Valley

During the flooding of the Salton Sea many newspapers focused on the threat it represented to the Imperial Valley. Many stories that were published exaggerated the extent of the flood danger. Charts that tracked the rising level of the sea were included with these stories, furthering the narrative that farms were in danger of being flooded.These stories were false. It can be considered understandable at the time, given they did not have historical perspective. While certain businesses like the New Liverpool Salt works and Southern Pacific Railroad suffered damages resulting from the flooding, the vast majority farms that existed at the time were not in any imminent danger. Based on the volume of the Salton Sink, in California's Coachella Valley and Imperial Valley it would take approximately 700 cubic miles of water to fill the entire basin up to sea level. Given the average flow volume of the Colorado River is about 14 cubic miles per year, it would take a long time to completely flood. When absorption and evaporation are accounted for, it would require almost a century to completely flood the region. Unknown at the time, the construction of Boulder Dam (later renamed Hoover Dam) would have arrested the flow of the river long before any flood waters reached the majority of farms that existed at that time.Personal life and death
<mask> was married twice. His first wife was Katherine Davenport of Vacaville, California. They had one daughter, Estelle, who was born in 1888. His second marriage was to Mildred Cassin of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. He died on March 3, 1922 at his home in Los Angeles at age 62.

masks:
Charles Robinson Rockwood
Charles R
. Rockwood
John Robinson
Rockwood
Rockwood
Rockwood
Rockwood
Rockwood
Rockwood
Rockwood
Rockwood
Rockwood
Rockwood


title: Edgar Claxton

texts:
<mask> MBE, FICE, FIEE, FIMechE (7 July 1910 – 13 August 2000) was a British rail engineer. He worked for the British Railways Board and was part of the team which electrified parts of the United Kingdom's mainline railway network in the 1960s. He was responsible for "design and procurement of all the equipment, and for the electrification side of the projects." He was made an MBE in 1969 for his work. Background and private life
<mask>'s parents were <mask> "Ted" <mask> (Marylebone 10 June 1883 – Hillingdon 5 February 1971), and Nellie Mildred "Helen" Petty (Hackney 20 August 1883 – Uxbridge 21 February 1945). They married on 1 August 1908, in Hammersmith. Ted was a poor law settlement officer, working around the country from the offices of St Marylebone Workhouse.At the same time he was registrar for births and deaths for Marylebone parish, working from an office in his home, as did his father Jesse. Helen was a music teacher, and the honorary piano accompanist for the Northwood Choral Society. A year after Helen's death, <mask> married Mary Browning Eustance (1887–1966) in Edmonton on 24 April 1946. <mask> was born in Marylebone  on 7 July 1910, and died in Oxford on 13 August 2000. He first appeared in the newspapers at the age of two years, having attended a family wedding. He attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, and in 1939 he gained First Class Honours in engineering at University College London. On 11 July 1928, soon after <mask>'s 18th birthday, a motor car driven by <mask> of Roy Road, Northwood, who had "driven for a year, and previously driven a motor cycle", was involved in a collision with a motor cycle in Northwood.The pillion rider of the motorcycle, 19-year-old Beatrice Davis, died. At the inquest of 20 July 1928 it was found that the car had stopped before the impact, the motor cyclist had been driving too fast, and that <mask> was "exonerated from all blame." The verdict was "accidental death." Between 1952 and 1975 <mask> was living at 47 Grange Gardens, Pinner. He married Elizabeth "Betty" Welsh (1910–1986). They had several children. In 1996 he was the sponsor and main benefactor to St Laurence Church, Shotteswell, Warwickshire, when the six bells of the church were matched, re-tuned and re-hung, following long disuse.He is buried in Shotteswell churchyard. Career

Early career
<mask>'s first employment was with the engineering firm Kennedy & Donkin. This involved him with projects "mostly for generating and sub-stations, overhead lines and cables," including work in Northern Ireland and "construction of the National Grid in Scotland." In 1937 <mask> became a technical assistant, appointed by Sir Nigel Gresley to the London North Eastern Railway (LNER). This appointment involved "dealing with power supply and 33kV distribution systems and associated equipment for the impending Manchester–Sheffield and Liverpool Street–Sheffield electrical systems, and other works." In 1939 he was living in lodgings with other LNER staff at 11 North Road, Glossop, describing himself as a civil and electrical engineer, LNER traction staff. World War II
As an essential railway worker he did not do military service in World War II.Instead, he worked for the Admiralty Dockyard Department. Here, he "looked after planning, specifications and contracts for electrical distribution systems for dock works both at home and abroad." Later career
After the war, <mask> was again employed by LNER as senior technical assistant in the Electric Traction Section, "handling contracts for electric locomotives and rolling stock," developing diesel and electric shunting locomotives. He was involved in running trials in Zeist, Utrecht, for some years, with respect to Gresley's prototype electrical locomotive Tommy, LNER no.6701. By the end of 1951, <mask> was the assistant electrification engineer for the MSW electrification scheme, based at Dukinfield, "supervising all branches of the MSW electrification project from end to end," including Scotland. He was working with Metropolitan Vickers & Co., "installing electrical equipment into the newly formed fleet of locomotives for the re-started 1936 programme," i.e. the project plans in which he had been involved before the war.From 1952, <mask> was the assistant electrical engineer (development), for the chief electrical engineer's department, British Railways central staff, British Transport Commission (BTC). Following pioneer electrification of the Aix-les-Bains to La Roche-sur-Foron line, and the Valenciennes to Thionville line in 1954, the BTC asked <mask> to chair a "committee to review electrification strategy for main lines." He read a paper at the British Railways Electrification Conference in 1960. He "was part of the team setting up the first overhead wires for electrification of the mainline railway and was involved in the project commemorated" in the British Railways booklet, Change at Crewe (1960). This brochure details "the completion of Stage One, Manchester-Crewe of the Manchester-Liverpool-Euston Electrification Scheme." By 1969, <mask> was the fixed equipment projects engineer for the British Railways Board. He was "involved in all British Railway electrification projects throughout the country, and [was] responsible for the design and procurement of all the equipment, and for the electrification side of the projects."E.M. Johnson (2018) says: By the time of his retirement in 1975, <mask> had attained a post with the British Railways Board of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (Electrification). Working with BR(LMR) he was therefore at the forefront of the biggest electrification schemes, both main line and suburban, of the 1950s and 1960s – notably the Manchester–Crewe and West Coast–Crewe to Euston and Crewe to Glasgow projects as well as such precursors as the Lancaster–Morecambe–Heysham ac experiments and those on the Colchester–Clacton–Walton and the Styal lines. Retirement work
Following his 1975 retirement, <mask> became a Transmark consultant. He was "heavily involved" in the electrification aspect of the design of the Channel Tunnel (with which he had had links since the 1950s) and in the railway electrification systems of Brazil, Romania and Finland. Awards and institutions
In 1946 when <mask> was living in Bath, he was elected an Associate of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and later became a FIMechE. He was a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE), and a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (FIEE). For his work he was made MBE in the 1969 Birthday Honours of Elizabeth II.<mask>'s team's overhead lines in 1960

According to <mask>'s Overhead Line Equipment paper of 1960, the lines included in the electrification plan were: Manchester–Crewe; Liverpool–Crewe; Crewe-Euston; Colchester–Clacton–Walton; Liverpool Street–Chelmsford–Southend; Liverpool Street–Enfield–Chingford–Hertford–Bishop's Stortford; London–Tilbury–Southend; Glasgow Suburban Stage I; Chelmsford–Colchester. <mask> and his team faced and resolved a number of challenges to the installation of the overhead electrification system. Overhead lines were considered less dangerous and more convenient than an electrified third rail which could not be used on level crossings and in the rail yards. However, there was dense traffic at speeds of up to  on the above routes and the trains would have to leave the main tracks when not in use. There was often little room between the train roofs and the bridges, bridges could not always be raised, and lowering the track level below bridges was not always feasible. The damp British atmosphere threatened to facilitate corrosion in electrical installations, while maintenance costs had to be limited. Where tunnels could not be adapted for space, lower-voltage equipment was fitted in."Welded-and-braced portal structures and extensive trials with tubular structures" formed part of the solution for carrying the equipment. They spent a lot on compound structures, non-ferrous fittings and special insulators to protect equipment from weathering and air pollution, making it safe for fast trains. Where there had to be neutral sections and gaps in electrification, special equipment was designed for the transition between differing power supplies. Regarding this challenge, Claxton said in 1960, "Section insulators of high performance have been provided and advanced high-speed bi-directional designs have now been developed." At that stage in 1960, the team was investigating "less expensive galvanised live-side fittings, simple high-speed sectioning devices and the use of glass-fibre and toughened glass." They were aiming to save construction and maintenance costs, and simplify the design, while making sure that the equipment would work properly and last well. In October 1960, Ernest Marples said, "It will be the technical advances that will decide the attraction of rail travel in the future.There is the news of the Manchester-Crewe electrification. There is the news of the Kent electrification, which has brought about a 36 per cent. increase in passengers over the previous steam traction." See also
 Railway electrification in Great Britain

Notes

References

External links

British Rail people
1910 births
2000 deaths
20th-century British engineers
British railway civil engineers
English civil engineers
English electrical engineers
English railway mechanical engineers
Members of the Order of the British Empire
People from Marylebone
Fellows of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Alumni of University College London
People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood

masks:
Edgar Claxton
Edgar Claxton
Edgar
Claxton
Ted Claxton
Edgar Claxton
Claxton
Edgar Claxton
Edgar Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Edgar Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Claxton
Claxton


title: Adrian Cole (writer)

texts:
<mask> (born 22 July 1949 in Plymouth, England), is a British writer. He is known for his Dream Lords trilogy, the Omaran Saga and Star Requiem series, and his young adult novels, Moorstones and The Sleep of Giants. Biography
<mask> was born in Plymouth, Devonshire in 1949. <mask>'s father was in the Army, and <mask> spent three years with his family in Malaya when he was a young child, before settling back in Devon. He became interested in fantasy and science fiction at an early age, through Tarzan of the Apes, King Solomon's Mines, movies such as Earth versus the Flying Saucers and comics such as the original Classics Illustrated War of the Worlds, as well as the works of Algernon Blackwood, Lovecraft, and Dennis Wheatley. He first read Lord of the Rings in the late 1960s while working in a public library in Birmingham, and was inspired by the book to write an epic entitled "The Barbarians," which was eventually revised into The Dream Lords trilogy, published by Zebra Books in the early 1970s. He began writing various ghost, horror, and fantasy tales, which he sold to various anthologies and magazines, and he had 4 novels published in England by Robert Hale.The novel Madness Emerging had a distinctly Lovecraftian flavour, set in a small Cornish village (based on one in which he had lived for 5 years) overrun by an alien force. He then had two "young adults" fantasy novels published in England, Moorstones and The Sleep of Giants, the first one set on Dartmoor, the second in the South West. A number of fantasy series followed, including The Omaran Saga and Star Requiem, as well as the novelizations of his stories about the Voidal, a S&S character and his elemental sidekick, Elfloq the Familiar. He edited a collection of Lin Carter's short stories about Thongor of Lemuria and the book, Young Thongor. His novel Night of the Heroes envisions various superheroes forming an unlikely union to battle an evil genius. He has had short stories published in The Year's Best Fantasy Stories (DAW Books) and Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and he was once nominated for the former Balrog Award. His story "Dark Destroyer" was included in the anthology Swords Against the Millennium.His first shared-world novel was The Crimson Talisman, which is set in the realm of Eberron. <mask> has worked as a librarian, an administrator in education, and Director of Resources in a large secondary college in the town of Bideford, North Devon, where he lives with his wife Judy, son Sam, and daughter Katia in an old blacksmith's forge.

masks:
Adrian Christopher Synnot Cole
Adrian Cole
Cole
Adrian
Cole


title: Preston Tucker

texts:
<mask> (September 21, 1903 – December 26, 1956) was an American automobile  entrepreneur. He is most remembered for his Tucker 48 sedan, initially nicknamed the "Tucker Torpedo", an automobile which introduced many features that have since become widely used in modern cars. Production of the Tucker '48 was shut down amidst scandal and controversial accusations of stock fraud on March 3, 1949. The 1988 movie Tucker: The Man and His Dream is based on <mask>'s spirit and the saga surrounding the car's production. Early life (1903–1933)

<mask> was born on September 21, 1903, on a peppermint farm near Capac, Michigan. His father was a railroad engineer named <mask> (1880-1907). His mother was Lucille Caroline (née <mask>) <mask> (1881-1960).He grew up outside Detroit in the suburb of Lincoln Park, Michigan. <mask> was raised by his mother, a teacher, after his father died of appendicitis when <mask> was two years old. First learning to drive at age 11, <mask> was obsessed with automobiles from an early age. At age 16, <mask> began purchasing late model automobiles, repairing/refurbishing them and selling the cars for a profit. He attended the Cass Technical High School in Detroit, but he quit school and landed a job as an office boy for the Cadillac Motor Company, where he used roller skates to make his rounds more efficiently. In 1922, young <mask> joined the Lincoln Park, Michigan, police department (against the pleas of his mother), his interest stirred by his desire to drive and ride the fast, high-performance police cars and motorcycles. His mother had him removed from the force, pointing out to department officials that at 19, he was below the department's minimum required age.<mask> and his new wife, Vera (married in 1923 at 20), then took over a six-month lease on a gas station near Lincoln Park, running the station together. Vera would run the station during the day while <mask> worked on the Ford Motor Company assembly line. After the lease ran out, <mask> quit Ford and returned to the police force again, but in his first winter back he was banned from driving police vehicles by the force after using a blowtorch to cut a hole in the dashboard of a cruiser to allow engine heat to warm the cabin. During the last couple of months at the gas station, <mask> began selling Studebaker cars on the side. He met an automobile salesman, Michael Dulian, who later became sales manager for the Tucker Car Corporation. Dulian hired <mask> as a car salesman at his Detroit dealership. <mask> did very well, but the dealership was a long drive from his Lincoln Park home and so <mask> quit and returned to the police force for the last time.A few months later, Dulian, still impressed with <mask>'s immediate success as a salesman, invited <mask> to move south with him to Memphis, Tennessee, to work as a sales manager. Dulian was transferred a couple of years later, but <mask> stayed in Memphis and was a salesman for Ivor Schmidt (Stutz) and John T. Fisher Motor Company (Chrysler), where he became general sales manager. While managing Chrysler sales in Memphis, <mask> made a connection with Pierce-Arrow. In 1933, <mask> moved to Buffalo, New York, and became regional sales manager for Pierce-Arrow automobiles, but after only two years, he moved back to Detroit and worked as a Dodge salesman for Cass Motors. Auto racing and the Indianapolis 500 (1932–1939)

During the early 1930s, <mask> began an annual one-month trek to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Having a heavy interest in the race cars and their designers, <mask> met Harry Miller, maker of more Indianapolis 500-winning engines than any other during this period. <mask> moved to Indianapolis to be closer to the racing car development scene and worked as the transportation manager for a beer distributor, overseeing the fleet of delivery trucks for the company.A better engineer than businessman, Miller declared bankruptcy in 1933 and was looking for new opportunities. <mask> persuaded Miller to join him in building race cars, and they formed "Miller and Tucker, Inc." in 1935. The company's first job was building 10 souped-up Ford V-8 racers for Henry Ford. The time to develop and test the cars was insufficient, however, and the steering boxes on all entrants overheated and locked up, causing them to drop out of the race. The design was later perfected by privateers, with examples running at Indy through 1948. Miller and Tucker, Inc. continued race car development and various other ventures until Miller's death in 1943. <mask> was close friends with Miller and even helped Miller's widow pay for her husband's funeral costs.While working with Miller, <mask> met the Chevrolet brothers and chief mechanic/engineer John Eddie Offutt, who would later help <mask> develop and build the first prototype of the Tucker '48. <mask>'s outgoing personality and his involvement at Indianapolis made him well known in the automotive industry by 1939. Tucker Combat Car and the Tucker Gun Turret (1939–1941)

In late 1937, while recovering in an Indianapolis hospital from an appendectomy, <mask> was reading the news about war looming on the horizon in Europe. He got the idea of developing a high-speed armored combat vehicle. In 1939, <mask> moved his family back to Michigan and bought a house and property in Ypsilanti. He remodeled an old barn on his property and began and operated a machine shop called the Ypsilanti Machine and Tool Company, planning to use the facility to develop various automotive products. Opportunity arose for <mask> from the Dutch government, who wanted a combat vehicle suited to the muddy Dutch terrain.Continuing his working relationship with Harry Miller, <mask> began designing a narrow-wheelbase armored combat car powered by a Miller-modified Packard V-12 engine. The car was nicknamed the "Tucker Tiger". At least one prototype of the combat car was built. Production of the car was to be done at the Rahway, New Jersey, factory owned by the American Armament Corporation. The Germans invaded the Netherlands in the spring of 1940 before <mask> could complete the deal, and the Dutch government lost interest, so he completed the prototypes and opted to try to sell the vehicle to the U.S. government. The car is said to have reached 100 mph (161 km/h), far in excess of the design specifications. The U.S. military felt the vehicle was too fast and had already committed to other combat vehicles.The highly mobile, power-operated gun turret featured on the Tucker combat car, which became known as the "Tucker Turret", earned the interest of the U.S. Navy. Harry Miller would later take some of the designs from the Tucker Combat Car to American Bantam, where he was involved in the development of the first Jeep. The Tucker Turret was soon in production (initially at Tucker's Ypsilanti machine shop). While the turret is often reported to have been used widely on bombers, like the B-17 and B-29, it was actually developed for a different bomber, the Douglas B-18 Bolo. In the end no Tucker turrets equipped any bombers. <mask>'s patent and royalty rights were confiscated by the US and <mask> was embroiled in lawsuits for years trying to recoup royalties for use of his patents on the turret. Tucker Aviation Corporation and Higgins-Tucker Aviation (1941–1943)

In 1940, Tucker formed the Tucker Aviation Corporation, with the goal of manufacturing aircraft and marine engines.The corporation (<mask>'s first) was initially based at his shop behind his Michigan home. A public corporation with stock certificates issued, <mask> raised enough to develop the design for a fighter aircraft, the Tucker XP-57, which earned the interest of the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Development of a single prototype of the airplane was started, powered by a straight 8-cylinder engine developed/influenced by Harry Miller, called the Miller L-510. Nicknamed the "Peashooter", this fighter competed for WWII government war contracts. However, financial problems within the company slowed the development of the prototype and the USAAC allowed the contract to lapse. During World War II, <mask> became associated with Andrew Jackson Higgins, builder of Liberty ships, PT boats and landing craft. Higgins acquired Tucker Aviation Corporation in March 1942, and <mask> moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, to serve as a vice-president of Higgins Industries, specifically in charge of the Higgins-Tucker Aviation division.This entity was to produce gun turrets, armament, and engines for Higgins' torpedo boats. This relationship did not work out and <mask> severed his association with Higgins in 1943. Higgins referred to <mask> as "The world's greatest salesman. When he turns those big brown eyes on you, you'd better watch out!" After 1943, <mask> moved back to Michigan, intending to start his own auto company, the Tucker Corporation. Tucker Corporation and the 1948 Tucker Sedan (1944–1947)

After the war, the public was ready for totally new car designs, but the Big Three Detroit automakers had not developed any new models since 1941, and were in no hurry to introduce them. That provided great opportunities for new small, independent automakers who could develop new cars more rapidly than the huge legacy automakers.<mask> saw his opportunity to develop and bring his "car of tomorrow" to market. Another small automaker, Studebaker, was first with an all-new postwar model, but <mask> took a different tack, designing a safety car with innovative features and modern styling. <mask>'s first design appeared in Science Illustrated magazine in December 1946, showing a futuristic version of the car with a hydraulic drive system designed by George Lawson, along with a photo of a 1/8 scale model blown up to appear full sized, titled the "Torpedo on Wheels". That was only an early rendering of the proposal, with its design features yet to meet reality, but the motoring public was now excited about the Tucker. To finish the prototype design and get construction under way, <mask> hired famed stylist Alex Tremulis, previously of Auburn/Cord/Duesenberg, on December 24, 1946, and gave him just six days to finalize the design. On December 31, 1946, <mask> approved Tremulis's preliminary design. <mask>'s future-car became known as the "Tucker Torpedo" from the first Lawson sketch; however, not desiring to bring to mind the horrors of WWII, <mask> quickly changed the name to the "Tucker '48".With Tremulis's design sketch, a full-page advertisement was run in March 1947 in many national newspapers claiming "How 15 years of testing produced the car of the year". <mask> said he had been thinking about the car for 15 years. The second advertisement described specifically many of the innovative features <mask> proposed for his car, many of which would not make it to the final car. This advertisement had the public very excited about this car, but <mask> had much work to do before a prototype was ready to be shown. To finalize the design, <mask> hired the New York design firm J. Gordon Lippincott to create an alternate body. Only the front end and horizontal taillight bar designs were retained for the final car. Another car, a sportier version of the Tucker '48 called the Tucker Talisman, was sketched as well but never left the drawing board.To diversify his corporation, <mask> imported Italian engineer Secondo Campini, who was well known and respected in the aviation industry. He was put in charge of pursuing a US Air Force development contract, hoping to use Tucker's huge Chicago factory to someday build more than just cars. Campini and Tucker also began developing plans for a gas turbine-powered car to be produced by Tucker. The Tucker Export Corporation was also formed, based in New York, which was established as an entity to manage worldwide sales of Tucker's cars. Headed by <mask>'s long-time friend, Colombian Max Garavito, distributorships were set up internationally, including South America and South Africa. <mask> assembled a group of leaders for his corporation that read like a "who's who" of the automotive industry:
Fred Rockelman; Tucker VP and Sales Director (Formerly president of Plymouth)
Hanson Brown; Executive VP (Formerly VP for General Motors)
KE Lyman; Development engineer (Formerly of Bendix Corporation and Borg-Warner)
Ben Parsons; Tucker engineering VP and chief engineer (International fuel injection expert)
Lee S. Treese; VP of manufacturing (Formerly a Ford executive)
Herbert Morley; (Borg-Warner plant manager)
Robert Pierce; VP and Treasurer (Formerly secretary of Briggs Manufacturing Company)
Tucker and his colleagues were able to obtain the largest factory building in the world, the  Dodge Chicago Aircraft Engine Plant, which was later known as the Chicago Dodge Plant, from the War Assets Administration. The facility had previously been used to build the massive Wright R-3350 Cyclone engines for B-29 Superfortress aircraft during WWII.<mask>, thinking long-term, believed this large facility would fit his long-term goal of producing an entire line of Tucker automobiles under one roof. <mask> signed the lease in July 1946, contingent on him raising $15 million in capital by March 1947. <mask> needed this money to get going, so he began raising money by selling dealership rights and floating a $20 million stock issue through the Chicago brokerage firm Floyd D. Cerf. With over $17 million in the bank by 1947, the Tucker Corporation was up and running. While <mask> ultimately got the plant, he was not able to move in until September 1947 because of delays caused by counter-claims and disputes over the plant between <mask> and the Lustron Corporation. That delayed <mask> by almost a year, during which time development of the car continued at his Michigan machine shop. <mask> planned for 60,000 cars a year, with 140 per day produced for the first 4 months and 300 per day produced afterward.<mask> suffered another setback when his bids to obtain two steel mills to provide raw materials for his cars were rejected by the WAA under a shroud of questionable

masks:
Preston Thomas Tucker
Tucker
Preston Tucker
Shirley Harvey Tucker
Preston
Tucker
Tucker
Preston
Tucker
Preston Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Preston
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Preston Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker


title: Preston Tucker

texts:
 politics. <mask>'s specifications for his revolutionary car called for a rear engine, a low-RPM 589 cubic inch engine with hydraulic valves instead of a camshaft, fuel injection, direct-drive torque converters on each rear wheel (instead of a transmission), disc brakes, the location of all instruments within the diameter and reach of the steering wheel, a padded dashboard, self-sealing tubeless tires, independent springless suspension, a chassis that protected occupants in a side impact, a roll bar within the roof, a laminated windshield designed to pop out during an accident, and a center "cyclops" headlight which would turn when steering at angles greater than 10 degrees in order to improve visibility around corners during night driving. While most of those innovations made it to the final 51 prototypes, several were dropped for their cost and the lack of time to develop such mechanically-complicated designs. The low-RPM 589-cubic-inch engine, individual torque converters, mechanical fuel injection, and the disc brakes were all dropped during the design and testing phase. Having run out of time to develop the 589-cubic-inch engine for the car, <mask> ultimately settled on a modified 334 in3 (5.47 L) Franklin O-335 aircraft engine. He liked the engine so much he purchased its manufacturer, Aircooled Motors in New York for $1.8 million in 1947. That secured a guaranteed engine supply for his car.Turmoil surrounding Tucker Corporation (1946–1948)

The Securities and Exchange commission bothered the Tucker Corporation from its earliest days. The SEC was embittered after small automaker Kaiser-Frazer was given millions of dollars in grants towards development of a new car, and subsequently squandered the money. While <mask> took no money from the federal government, small upstart automakers were under intense SEC scrutiny, and <mask> was no exception. One of <mask>'s most innovative business ideas caused the most trouble for the company and was used by the SEC to spark its formal investigation. His Accessories Program raised funds by selling accessories before the car was even in production. Potential buyers who purchased Tucker accessories were guaranteed a spot on the dealer waiting list for a Tucker '48 car. <mask> also began selling dealerships before the car was ready for production, and at the time of the trial had sold over 2000 dealerships nationwide at a price of $7500 to nearly $30,000 each.Feeling pressure from the SEC, Harry Aubrey Toulmin, Jr., the chairman of the Tucker board of directors, resigned and wrote a letter to the SEC on September 26, 1947, in an attempt to distance himself from the company. In the letter, Toulmin indicated that he quit "because of the manner in which <mask> is using the funds obtained from the public through sale of stock." Describing <mask> as "a tall, dark, delightful, but inexperienced boy",  Toulmin added that the Tucker '48 machine "does not actually run, it just goes 'goose-geese'" and "I don't know if it can back up." In reply, <mask> stated that he had asked Toulmin to resign "to make way for a prominent man now active in the automobile industry." The "prominent man" turned out to be <mask> himself. In late 1947, a radio segment on <mask> by popular journalist Drew Pearson criticized the Tucker '48, calling it the "tin goose" (referring to Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose") and noting that the first prototype "could not even back up". The first prototype lacked a reverse gear because <mask> had not had time to finish the direct torque drive by the time of the car's unveiling.This was corrected in the final driveline, but the public damage was done and a negative media feeding frenzy resulted. <mask> responded by publishing a full-page advertisement in many national newspapers with "an open letter to the automobile industry" wherein he subtly hinted that his efforts to build the cars were being stymied by politics and an SEC conspiracy. Nonetheless, dealership owners began filing lawsuits to recover their money, and Tucker's stock value plummeted. SEC trial and demise of the Tucker Corporation (1949–1950)
In 1949, <mask> surrendered his corporate records to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. United States Attorney Otto Kerner, Jr. began a grand jury investigation in February 1949. On March 3, 1949, a federal judge handed control of the Tucker Corporation over to Aaron J. Colnon and John H. Schatz. Soon thereafter on June 10, 1949, Tucker and six other Tucker Corporation executives were indicted on 25 counts of mail fraud, 5 counts of violations of SEC regulations and one count of conspiracy to defraud.The indictment included 46-year-old <mask>, Harold A. Karsten, 58, "alias Abe Karatz"; Floyd D. Cerf, 61 (whose firm had handled the stock offering); Robert Pierce, 63; Fred Rockelman, 64; Mitchell W. Dulian, 50, Tucker sales manager; Otis Radford, 42, Tucker Corporation comptroller; and Cliff Knoble, 42, Tucker advertising manager. <mask> publicly called the charges "silly and ridiculous" and hailed the indictment as "an opportunity to explain our side of the story". <mask> and his colleagues' defense was handled by a team of attorneys led by William T. Kirby. Another publication, Collier's magazine, ran an article critical of <mask> on June 25, 1949, which included leaked details of the SEC report (which was never released publicly). This article was reprinted in Readers Digest as well, expanding the scope of the negative press concerning <mask>. The trial began on October 4, 1949, presided over by Judge Walter J. LaBuy. Tucker Corporation's factory was closed on the very same day.At that point, only 37 Tucker '48s had been built. A corps of 300 loyal employees returned to the factory (some without pay) and finished assembly of another 13 cars for a total production of 50 cars (not including the prototype). At trial, the government contended that <mask> never intended to produce a car. Throughout the trial, the SEC report on <mask> was classified as "secret" and <mask>'s attorneys were never allowed to view or read it, but it was leaked to the press nevertheless. As the trial proceeded, the government and SEC brought several witnesses (mostly former Tucker employees) to highlight the rudimentary methods used by <mask> to develop the car; the early suspensions were installed three times before they worked, and early parts were taken from junkyards to build the prototype. Answering back in <mask>'s defense, designer Alex Tremulis testified that it was common industry practice to use old car parts for prototype builds, and pointed out this had been done when he was involved with developing the 1942 Oldsmobile under General Motors. Tucker Vice President Lee Treese testified that Tucker's metal stamping and parts fabrication operations were 90% ready to mass-produce the car by June 1948 and that outside interference had slowed the final preparations for production.This back and forth between the prosecution and the defense continued until November 8, 1949, when the judge demanded the SEC prosecutors "get down to the meat of the case and start proving the conspiracy charge." Defense attorney Kirby directed attention to automaker Kaiser-Frazer, pointing out that early models of their government-funded new car model had been made of wood and that when this project failed, Kirby stated in court documents that "Kaiser-Frazer didn't get indicted, and they got 44 million dollars in loans from the government, didn't they?" All told Kaiser-Frazer had received nearly $200 million in government grants, but did not produce the car they promised. After a break for Christmas, the trial resumed in January 1950. The government's star witness, Daniel J. Ehlenz, a former Tucker dealership owner and distributor from St. Paul, Minnesota, testified that he had lost $28,000 in his investment in the Tucker Corporation. However, on cross-examination, the defense used this witness to their advantage when Ehlenz testified that he still drove his Tucker '48 given to him by <mask> and that the car had  on it and still cruised smoothly at . The tide turned in <mask>'s favor when the government called its final witness, SEC accountant Joseph Turnbull, who testified that <mask> had taken in over $28 million and spent less than one-seventh of it on research and development of the car.He stated that <mask> had taken over $500,000 of the investors' money for himself, but never delivered a production car. Kirby rebutted Turnbull's claims on cross-examination, asking for proof of the allegations of financial mismanagement from <mask>'s seized financial records. Turnbull was unable to offer such evidence. In closing his witness testimony, Kirby asked Turnbull, "You are not here suggesting these figures are figures of monies taken fraudulently, are you?" Turnbull's answer was, "Not exactly, no." After this final SEC witness, <mask>'s defense attorneys surprised everyone by refusing to call any witnesses to the stand. Defense attorney Daniel Glasser told the court, "It is impossible to present a defense when there has been no offense".In his closing arguments, Kirby became tearful and emotionally told the jury to "stop picking at the turkey," and stated that <mask> "either intended to cheat and that's all they intended to do or they tried in good faith to produce a car. The two are irreconcilable." He then invited the members of the jury to take a ride in one of the eight Tucker '48s parked in front of the courthouse before they made their decision. On January 22, 1950, after 28 hours of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty" on all counts for all accused. <mask> had prevailed at the trial, but the Tucker Corporation, now without a factory, buried in debt, and faced with numerous lawsuits from Tucker dealers that were angry about the production delays, thus, was no more. Speculation and controversy surrounding the Tucker Corporation
Despite the outcome of the trial, speculation has continued with regard to the question of whether Tucker genuinely intended to produce a new car and bring it to market, or whether the entire enterprise was a sham, designed for the sole purpose of collecting funds from gullible investors. Tucker collectors of the Tucker Automobile Club of America have amassed over 400,000 drawings/blueprints, corporate documents, and letters which they believe suggest that Tucker was, in fact, developing the manufacturing process necessary to mass-produce the Tucker '48.They also point to the fact that by the time of the investigation, <mask> had hired over 1900 employees, including teams of engineers and machinists. At the trial, the Tucker VP Lee Treese testified that they were 90% ready with industrial machinery at the Chicago plant to mass-produce the vehicle. Later life and death (1950–1956)

<mask>'s reputation rebounded after the acquittal. His optimism was remarkable; after the trial was over, he was quoted as saying, "Even Henry Ford failed the first time out". Tucker Corporation assets were auctioned off publicly in Chicago. One remaining Tucker '48 car was given to <mask>, and another to his mother. In the early 1950s, <mask> teamed up with investors from Brazil and auto designer Alexis de Sakhnoffsky to build a sports car called the Carioca.<mask> could not use the <mask> name for the car, as Peter Dun, of Dun and Bradstreet, had purchased the rights to the name. The Tucker Carioca was never developed. <mask>'s travels to Brazil were plagued by fatigue, and upon his return to the United States, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. <mask> died from pneumonia as a complication of lung cancer on December 26, 1956, at the age of 53. <mask> is buried at Michigan Memorial Park in Flat Rock, Michigan. Legacy

In 1954, a group of investors tried to revive the Tucker Corporation by soliciting investors (mostly former Tucker distributors and dealer owners) for a new car. This effort was led by George A. Schmidt, former president of the Tucker Dealers Association.They developed sketches for a sleek 2-door convertible, but were unable to generate enough support to get it off the drawing board. Tucker's defense attorney, William T. Kirby , later became Chairman of the Board of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Otto Kerner, Jr., the US attorney who had aggressively pursued the Tucker Corporation, was later convicted on 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, perjury, and related charges for stock fraud in 1974. He was the first federal appellate judge in history to be jailed. He was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $50,000. The location of the former Tucker Corporation at 7401 S Cicero Ave, Chicago, IL 60629–5818, is now the corporate headquarters of Tootsie Roll Industries and the Ford City Mall (the building was owned for a time by Ford Motor Company). The building is so large that it was split in two, and even with a large open area between the two resulting buildings, each structure is still substantial.Tucker's 1948 Sedan's revolutionary ideas in car safety helped formulate car safety standards. The <mask> family held on to Aircooled Motors until 1961, when it was sold to Aero Industries. Today the remaining 47 Tucker cars are highly collectible. Some examples in very good condition can command prices of up to $3 million each. Today, remaining original stock certificates for Tucker Corporation common stock, circa 1947, are valuable to collectors, and are worth more than when originally issued. Over 10,000 stock certificates were personally signed by <mask>, making these the most desirable. External links

  – <mask> Documentary 45 minutes video

References

1903 births
1948 establishments in the United States
1956 deaths
People from St. Clair County, Michigan
American automobile designers
American automotive pioneers
Cass Technical High School alumni
Deaths from cancer in Michigan
Deaths from lung cancer
American founders of automobile manufacturers
20th-century American businesspeople
American automotive engineers
Automotive businesspeople
American military

masks:
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Preston Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Preston Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Preston Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Preston Tucker
Preston Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Tucker
Preston Tucker
Preston Tucker