Castle Aching

[Regularity]

47 minutes ago, runs as required said:

Andrew Marr looks so young

David Starkey is quite well preserved from Tudor times, though!

 

19 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I thought it might have been a car or one of those electric taxis, and didn't notice the vehicle was following the tramlines, the film was rather over-exposed and the wires were invisible too.

Most of the system wasn’t electrified until after 1900, so probably horse drawn.

[Donw]

Andrew MArr was commenting about how they had to optimism to believe poverty could be eradicated. I think the level of poverty in the 1900s has been eradicated but as we now define poverty as a percentage below the median wage ( about 60% I think)  it can never be eradicated as you raise the level of the poor  that will raise the median wage as will increasing the income of the rich.  There will always be a level of relative poverty. If we were able to double everyone's wages/income tomorrow those currently regarded as in poverty would still be in poverty compared to the better off. 

 

Don

Edited November 26, 2019 by Donw

[Regularity]

33 minutes ago, Donw said:

it can never be eradicated as you raise the level of the poor  that will raise the median wage as will increasing the income of the rich. 

No.

If the poor were still all below the median wage, then the median wage would not rise, neither would the income of the rich raise.

That's the whole point of using it.

It's simply a case of saying, anyone earning less than 60% of the median wage, will be guaranteed a minimum of 60% of the minimum wage.

(Median wage is about £24k, so we are talking of a minimum income of £14,400 or so.)

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Regularity
Correct agreement of tense

[Compound2632]

25 minutes ago, Donw said:

as we now define poverty as a percentage below the median wage ( about 60% I think)  it can never be eradicated as you raise the level of the poor  that will raise the median wage as will increasing the income of the rich. 

 

If the band of wages is sufficiently narrow around the median - say from 70 to 130 where he median is 100, then no wage-earner is below your poverty line of 60.

 

If you prefer to think of a normal distribution of wages, you can set the standard deviation sufficiently small - say 13 - that the poverty line is more than three standard deviations from the median; then the number of wage-earners below it is negligible.

 

Of course that's only considering wage earners, and also neglecting the fact that in reality poverty has many causes, so that the true poverty line is different for people in differing circumstances.

[Regularity]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

If you prefer to think of a normal distribution of wages, you can set the standard deviation sufficiently small - say 13 - that the poverty line is more than three standard deviations from the median; then the number of wage-earners below it is negligible.

Nothing to do with distributions nor standard deviations.

The median value is simply the one in the middle if you put them all in order. 

60% of the median is 60% of the median, i.e. if the median is 10, then 60% of it is 6.

[Compound2632]

All the numbers I gave should be read as percentages of the median if the median is taken as 100%.

[Regularity]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

All the numbers I gave should be read as percentages of the median if the median is taken as 100%.

But even so, mention of a normal distribution or standard deviation is simply irrelevant and merely complicates a very simple issue.

[Compound2632]

27 minutes ago, Regularity said:

But even so, mention of a normal distribution or standard deviation is simply irrelevant and merely complicates a very simple issue.

 

Apologies. I was merely trying to make the point that there could be a situation in which poverty was at least nominally eliminated.

[Nearholmer]

Since we’re meant to be considering the Edwardian era, it might be interesting to compare both income-distribution, and wealth-distribution, between then and now.

 

That plays to the tax debate too, because a huge factor in the difference between them and now has been redistributive taxation (although it doesn’t show up completely, because a lot of redistribution occurs through public services, which aren’t counted as income to the recipients, although in a sense they are).

 

Here is a graph to start the discussion, looking at the wealth, not income, of the richest 10%.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

Here is the changing slice of the pie held as wealth by the top 10%.

[Edwardian]

Is there life on Mars ....?

 

Well, this is fascinating ....

 

I'd heard of the Oriental College, Woking, it is, or was, right alongside the LSWR main line, its grounds abutting those of the LSWR Orphanage.  In War of the Worlds, Wells describes the heat ray taking off its roof and destroying the mosque, IIRC.

 

What I did not know is that the Oriental Institute was its second use, and that it had originally been built as the Royal Dramatic College, an actors' retirement home!

 

 

Nor had I heard of Dr. Gottlieb Leitner, who founded the Oriental Institute there in 1884.   An absolutely fascinating life. 

 

 

It was the Oriental College when Wells wrote WotW in 1898, while living opposite the college, across the railway line on Maybury Road, but it closed in 1899 on Leitner's death.  It is still marked as the Oriental College on the 1912 OS survey map. 

 

At some stage it was next occupied by Martinsyde, who, IIRC, built motor bikes and aeroplanes. 

 

Quite astonishingly, the building was demolished as late as the 1990s, to make way for the "Lion Retail Park", Asda, Halfords, Currys PC World etc; all the usual crap we get in every town. 

 

I damn the burghers of Woking to Hell for that.  At least the Martians took it down in style. 

 

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I cycled down that road back in the summer, and was surprised to find that it had disappeared, which shows it’s a while since I was there.

 

Theventire Woking landscape of WotW is handily provided with cycle routes that have the names of planets, and which link right through to Windsor Great Park (not very well, but they do).

Edited November 26, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Annie]

I have an intense dislike of retail parks and shopping malls.  In the town where I grew up the last remnants of the 19th century village, its church and graveyard were demolished to put up a shopping mall/retail park.  And of course shortly after that all the small local trader's had to close their doors for the last time because the new abomination had stolen away their business.

 

I'm surprised that a building like the Oriental College didn't have some kind of preservation order on it.

[Nearholmer]

Excellent Britain From Above photo here https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW056599

 

You can see the mosque, the college, and the sprawl of Walkers Lion Joints & Packings, which was the real gateway to Woking when arriving by train from Waterloo. It had a huge sign alongside the railway, and when I was small boy I could never figure out what it meant. The SR children's home is just off to the right - that had a miniature railway round the sports field, which is just peeking into view. Photo is 1938, but the place was very similar in the 1960s.

 

Apparently, the college became part of Walker's works, and they had their boardroom in the great hall, complete with stuffed lion, which confirms my boyhood suspicion that the place had something to do with packing lions, although I thought they packed them in something, rather than with sawdust.

 

PS: Maybury Road is the one running parallel to the railway in the left foreground, and I think 141, Wells' home, is one of the two pale coloured semis that create a break between two terraced rows. Its not quite directly opposite the big chimney in the works.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Buhar]

That set off an interesting little trip.  Clearly railway related too

 

https://www.jameswalkergroup.com/history.html

 

Alan

[runs as required]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Excellent Britain From Above photo here https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW056599

 

You can see the mosque, the college, and the sprawl of Walkers Lion Joints & Packings, which was the real gateway to Woking when arriving by train from Waterloo. It had a huge sign alongside the railway, and when I was small boy I could never figure out what it meant. The SR children's home is just off to the right - that had a miniature railway round the sports field, which is just peeking into view. Photo is 1938, but the place was very similar in the 1960s.

Apparently, the college became part of Walker's works, and they had their boardroom in the great hall, complete with stuffed lion, which confirms my boyhood suspicion that the place had something to do with packing lions, although I thought they packed them in something, rather than with sawdust.

My great uncle Joe (Bridges) was a mech, eng. and I was always told he was works manager for Lion Packings. Uncle Joe was the first in the family to have a car - a most ponderous Wolseley in 1946.

I was always rather fearful of him and my (semi-German) strict Baptist grandfather who would  play intensive games of chess together in the summerhouse at the end of Grandma's orchard. On such days the orchard was strictly out of bounds.

We'd always look out for Lion Packings's sign when whizzing down from Waterloo - the next sign was "You are now entering the Strong country".

dh

 

Edit

After following James's trail to the NLoS maps it is all too clear that my Great Uncle Joe was one of the B00gers who did for the poor Oriental Institute's chances of surviving de-industrial 'enterprise' development.. 

A more insensitive wrapping around of the former Institute/University with 'north' light trusses would be impossible to conceive. Perhaps it may have to do with the Oriental Institute being German owned and sequestered during WW1 for armaments or such like .

From the James Walker's website :

"By 1925 we had a workforce of 350 and our London [Tower Bridge] Docklands premises were bursting at the seams. On a weekend drive in Surrey, George Cook discovered a large disused factory next to a main railway line at Woking.
Edit 2

Wiki page on Martynsyde Ltd here Aeroplanes from 1908-22; motorcycles 1919 -22, defunct after factory fire at Woking 1922

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by runs as required

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Excellent Britain From Above photo here https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW056599

 

You can see the mosque, the college, and the sprawl of Walkers Lion Joints & Packings, which was the real gateway to Woking when arriving by train from Waterloo. It had a huge sign alongside the railway, and when I was small boy I could never figure out what it meant. The SR children's home is just off to the right - that had a miniature railway round the sports field, which is just peeking into view. Photo is 1938, but the place was very similar in the 1960s.

 

Apparently, the college became part of Walker's works, and they had their boardroom in the great hall, complete with stuffed lion, which confirms my boyhood suspicion that the place had something to do with packing lions, although I thought they packed them in something, rather than with sawdust.

 

PS: Maybury Road is the one running parallel to the railway in the left foreground, and I think 141, Wells' home, is one of the two pale coloured semis that create a break between two terraced rows. Its not quite directly opposite the big chimney in the works.

 

 

 

 

 

I concur. Wells's semi was reputedly the first built on Maybury Road and are rather different from the houses subsequently built to either side.  The other houses are on the 1912 survey, but I suspect we will find that they weren't there in the 1890s; just the Wells semi and the parade of shops at the Monument Road end.

 

The small industrial complex on Maybury Road itself is marked on the 1912 survey as a laundry. I don't know whether it was there in 1895-98.  Across the line, next to the Oriental College grounds, near to the mosque, was found the LSWR children's home that you mention.  It, too, is found on the 1912 survey, but would have been unknown to Wells at the time of WotW, as it opened in 1909 on land bought from the London Necropolis Company.  I don't know that it was in use as a burial ground; I rather doubt that, and assume it was a potential future cemetery site.  The gen is found Here.

 

The railway bridge over Maybury Hill/Monument Road is a girder bridge, yet Wells seems to describe it as "Maybury arch", suggesting that, in 1898, it was a masonry arch.   

 

EDIT: Ah, the "arch", seen in 1901: Francis Frith

 

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Edwardian

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Walkers Lion Joints & Packings,

 

Did you never have lion joint for dinner?

[Nearholmer]

All the things I never knew about Walkers as a boy are explained here https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/James_Walker_and_Co with specific mention of the Oriental Institute building.

 

Following the Martinsyde connection, they moved aircraft production to Brooklands, which explains something else I never understood as a boy: how one of my uncles came to be working on the nose cone and cockpit for the prototype Concorde at Brooklands, which seemed to be a place that didn't have any obvious connection to aeroplanes ....... presumably Martinsyde established that connection (shortly before going broke).

 

Ah, no, not quite ...... this explains that mystery https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/explore/our-history/aviation-industry

Edited November 26, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

5 hours ago, Regularity said:

No.

If the poor were still all below the median wage, then the median wage would not rise, neither would the income of the rich raise.

That's the whole point of using it.

It's simply a case of saying, anyone earning less than 60% of the median wage, will be guaranteed a minimum of 60% of the minimum wage.

(Median wage is about £24k, so we are talking of a minimum income of £14,400 or so.)

 

 

Mathematically that is true,, however you cannot just raise the income of the poor unless you start doing away with pay diffeentials so it will cause the whole scale to rise somewhat.  If the unemployed were to be given the 60% level a lot of people might decide it wasn't worth working unless you got more.  You could squeeze it up a bit  but there needs to be enough incentive for people to get on. Actually we could in theory reduce the top level but these are either entrepreneurs whose income is generally more dependant on market forces or the bosses of multinationals who are likely to demand and get higher raises than the rest of us. Up the tax on them and they will either find ways to avoid it or simply get a pay increase to conteract the effect of the tax.

So while we could probably change the proportion below the poverty level. Getting everyone above it would be very unlikely and trying to do so might well depress economic growth by having to restrict the income of the middle. There are a lot of voters around the median.

 

Don

[brack]

17 minutes ago, Donw said:

If the unemployed were to be given the 60% level a lot of people might decide it wasn't worth working

I suspect a lot of landlords would happily raise the rents on their ill maintained ex council houses and soak up any such increase in payments made either directly to 'the poor' or via housing benefit.

[runs as required]

Still on the Woking Oriental Institute site:

there was an interesting Jonathan Friedland 'Longview' program on Siemens and Huawei this morning on BBC R4  which

looked at Siemens in wartime Britain - more particularly leading up to and during  WWII.

I assume that the Woking Oriental Institute would have been requisitioned both for being German owned and being associated with the Ottoman Empire. So its use as the site for an aircraft factory was inevitable.

For legal eagles i discovered this LSE research about wartime requisition of alien property and trading most interesting.

dh

 

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The SR children's home is just off to the right - that had a miniature railway round the sports field, which is just peeking into view.

You might have come across my former colleague from the South Western Division, Max Millard, who was a leading light in the Woking Homes miniature railway. I never visited it but I believe it was of a relatively unusual gauge. There was also an outside-third coarse-scale 0 gauge layout which would have been to your taste.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I knew of the 0 gauge, but I think it was long gone by the time I actually visited the place, which was in the early 1980s, when it was ‘winding down’. I was staff rep’ for professional and technical staff, and we used to meet with ‘management’ as the Southern Region Line Committee, using rooms there. We would have tense discussions about staffing changes, redundancies and redeployment, classic ‘smoke filled rooms’ stuff, then during recesses would go outside and play cricket, mixed staff and management teams, on the field.

 

Written down, that sounds invented, but it surely isn’t.

[St Enodoc]

38 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, I knew of the 0 gauge, but I think it was long gone by the time I actually visited the place, which was in the early 1980s, when it was ‘winding down’. I was staff rep’ for professional and technical staff, and we used to meet with ‘management’ as the Southern Region Line Committee, using rooms there. We would have tense discussions about staffing changes, redundancies and redeployment, classic ‘smoke filled rooms’ stuff, then during recesses would go outside and play cricket, mixed staff and management teams, on the field.

 

Written down, that sounds invented, but it surely isn’t.

No it doesn't! It sounds very familiar to me. Regarding cricket, there was a certain Area Manager at Croydon who strengthened his Drummond Cup team by recruiting railmen based on their West Indian heritage and how fast they could bowl.