Mark Addy
Mark Addy
Born	Mark Addy Johnson (1964-01-14) 14 January 1964 (age 48) York, England, United Kingdom

Mark Addy Johnson (born 14 January 1964) is an English actor, best known for his roles as Detective Constable Gary Boyle in the British sitcom The Thin Blue Line, Dave in the film The Full Monty, father Bill Miller^[1] in the U.S. sitcom Still Standing and most recently as King Robert Baratheon in the HBO medieval fantasy epic Game of Thrones.

Personal life[link]

Addy was born in Tang Hall, York, and was educated in the city. In 1982–84 he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He lives with his wife Kelly and three children (Ruby, born 2000; Charlie, born 2003; and Oscar, born 2005) in Rufforth, close to Upper Poppleton village, near York. Addy's ancestors have lived in York at least since 1910 when his great-grandfather was living there. His father Ian has spent his working life as a glazier at York Minster.^[2]

Television[link]

Mark Addy as his Game of Thrones character

Addy made his first TV appearance in 1988 in A Very Peculiar Practice, followed by TV performances in shows such as Heartbeat, Band of Gold, Married with Children (one episode), Bruised Fruit, Peak Practice, The Thin Blue Line, Too Much Sun, Sunnyside Farm and most recently Trollied.

He played Bill Miller in Still Standing and played Detective Boyle in the second series of the British sitcom The Thin Blue Line. He also appeared on ITV1's comedy drama series Bonkers, and another ITV comedy drama, Bike Squad, in early 2008 as Sergeant John Rook.

Addy plays the character Robert Baratheon in the HBO series Game of Thrones.

Since 2009 Addy has starred with Fay Ripley in a series of adverts for the relaunched Tesco Clubcard.^[3]

Film[link]

He had a leading role in the film The Full Monty, and played the role of Fred Flintstone in the 2000 film The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. In that role, as well as in Still Standing, he played the role of a blue-collar American. He also played a supporting role as Mac McArthur in the 1998 film Jack Frost, with Michael Keaton. In 2001, he played a butler of Chris Rock's character in the movie Down to Earth and also appeared in A Knight's Tale as Roland. Addy played the role of David Philby in The Time Machine and made a guest appearance as the Ship Captain in Around the World in 80 Days with Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan and made an appearance as Friar Tuck in Ridley Scott's 2010 film Robin Hood.

Filmography[link]

Theatre[link]

Addy played Kevin Snell in the 2006 revival of Donkeys' Years at the Comedy Theatre in London, and in 2007-08 he has appeared at the National Theatre as Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing and as Hjalmar Johansen in Fram. In 2011, he played Vladimir, an NKVD officer, in Collaborators at the National Theatre, which also featured in the National Theatre Live programme, where live performances are broadcast to cinemas around the world.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mark Addy at the Internet Movie Database
• Rotten Tomatoes listing

Fay Ripley (born 26 February 1966) is an English actress and recipe author. Born in Wimbledon, London, Ripley is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (1990). Her first professional role was in the chorus of a pantomime version of Around the World in 80 Days. Ripley's early film and television appearances were limited, so she supplemented her earnings by working as a children's entertainer and by selling menswear door-to-door. After her scenes as a prostitute were cut from Frankenstein (1994), Ripley gained her first major film role playing Karen Hughes in Mute Witness (1995).

In 1996, Ripley was cast in her breakthrough role of Jenny Gifford in the ITV series Cold Feet. Initially a supporting role in the pilot episode, Ripley's character was expanded when a series was commissioned in 1998. She stayed with the show for three full series before leaving to take more varied roles and to spend more time with her family. She returned for a guest appearance in the fifth series. After leaving Cold Feet, Ripley played a succession of leading roles in comedies and dramas including Green-Eyed Monster (2001), I Saw You (2002), The Stretford Wives (2002), and Dead Gorgeous (2002). Each role won her critical acclaim. In 2006, she filmed a leading role in the ITV drama Bon Voyage, before taking time away from acting after the birth of her second child. Ripley returned to television in 2009, starring as human resources manager Christine Frances in the ITV comedy drama Monday Monday, and Nicola Perrin alongside Martin Clunes in BBC One's Reggie Perrin.

Since 2009, Ripley has authored two recipe books; Fay's Family Food in 2009 and What's For Dinner? in 2012. She is married to actor Daniel Lapaine, with whom she has two children—a daughter and a son—and is an advocate of several charities and causes.

Early life[link]

Ripley was born in Wimbledon, south-west London to Bev and Tina Ripley (née Forster) on 26 February 1966.^[1][2][3] Her father was a successful businessman, and brother of 1960s pop singer Twinkle, and her mother an antiques dealer.^[4] They separated when Ripley was two years old and both remarried, so Ripley spent her childhood moving around Surrey between two families. She was the only child from her parents' marriage but had several half-brothers and sisters from their new relationships. In her early life, she lived in various Surrey towns, including Walton-on-Thames, Weybridge, Esher and Cobham.^[5] Her father wanted her to have a good education so, despite the family's Protestant religion, sent her to various Catholic convent schools around the county.^[6] One was St Maur's Convent School in Weybridge, which she attended with Liza Tarbuck. Ripley did not feel academically challenged there, and later declared the school mediocre.^[4]

At school, Ripley enjoyed drama lessons, spurred on by the positive remarks she received from her drama teacher Susan Ford.^[7] She said of Ford, "When I was 15, one of the few people who said, 'Well done', was my drama teacher, and she was really brilliant. She was a powerful woman. Those women change your life. You always remember them. There was something about her. She basically made me feel very good about myself as a 15-year-old girl."^[5] Abandoning her childhood ambition to become a nurse, Ripley decided to go into acting.^[4] Her father wanted to send her to a finishing school in Switzerland but, in an effort to rebel from her middle-class Home Counties background, Ripley instead went to a local state college in Surrey, where she took A-levels in communication studies, art, and drama.^[8] During her time at the college, Ripley performed her own small shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In an effort to "bring Brecht to the masses",^[5] she performed The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the 1983 festival.^[9][10]

After completing her A-levels, Ripley sought entry to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It took her three attempts before she was accepted onto an acting course at the age of 20.^[5][8] While at drama school, Ripley lived in a flat in Streatham, South London, during a time she described as "horrible and penniless".^[5] To support herself financially, she sold menswear door-to-door, timeshares on Kensington High Street and Oxford Street, worked as a receptionist at a health club, and spent five years as children's entertainer "Miss Chief the Clown".^[11][12] As Miss Chief, Ripley performed magic tricks and painted faces at children's parties.^[8] The work paid off when she was able to get a mortgage on her first flat, stating clown as her occupation.^[9]

Acting career[link]

Early performances[link]

Ripley graduated from drama school in 1990.^[13] Her first role afterwards was playing Osatko in the chorus of Around the World in 80 Days at the Liverpool Playhouse during the 1990–91 pantomime season. She had ten lines in Japanese.^[5][14] Her next role came at the end of the year in the Manchester Royal Exchange's production of Medea.^[5][15] Ripley recalled, "It was only my second job, and I took it all very seriously, in my Greek sarong and my torch of fire, having to burble in tongues."^[5]

Ripley's early television and film career was characterised by minor roles as prostitutes or mistresses;^[5][9] in what was to be her film debut, she filmed two scenes as a prostitute in the film Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh, 1994). In the first scene, her character was strangled by the creature (played by Robert De Niro's stand-in). The second scene featured De Niro himself, though Ripley's character was lying dead in a mortuary throughout. Pleased with what looked like her breakout role, Ripley bought a dress for the premiere, though she was distraught when Branagh sent her a card apologising for cutting her scenes from the finished film.^[5] The same year, she filmed the role of Karen Hughes, the sister of a mute character who believes she sees a murder, in the low-budget film Mute Witness (Anthony Waller, 1995).^[5] After Mute Witness's British television premiere in 1999, a Daily Record critic wrote that Ripley's dramatic scenes were not as good as her comic ones.^[16]

In 1995, she appeared in an episode of Channel 4's Alan Davies vehicle One for the Road and made her last theatre appearance as a cast member in the Bush Theatre's Two Lips, Indifferent Red.^[17] In 1996, she had a role in Stephen Poliakoff's Frontiers, and played a club barmaid in Dennis Potter's penultimate television series Karaoke. The following year she had roles in the comedy film Roseanna's Grave (Paul Weiland, 1997), an episode of The Bill—as a woman whose nanny is accused of stealing from her—and a two-part episode of the Kevin Whately series The Broker's Man as a police officer.^[18] Her role in The Broker's Man was one of the few occasions on which Ripley played a police officer; she has frequently declined offers of similar roles because she does not want to "summon up the misery" to play a character that performs post-mortem examinations or investigates murders when she could be starring in more true to life and funny programmes.^[19]

Breakthrough roles[link]

In 1996, Ripley auditioned for Granada Television's Cold Feet, a television pilot about the romances of three couples living in Manchester. She believed she was reading for the role of Rachel, the "young, pretty one", and was surprised to discover that she was wanted for Jenny, the "northern housewife". In the audition, she performed with an inelegant approximation of a local Manchester accent. The producers found her approach to the role refreshing from other actresses, who were seen as too "finger-wagging". Ripley won the role, and appeared opposite John Thomson and James Nesbitt in the programme.^[20] After the pilot won an award, ITV's director of programmes commissioned a series of Cold Feet, so Ripley worked on improving her character's accent by speaking to locals and mimicking their speech.^[21] Her supporting character from the pilot episode was given a bigger role in the series; in the first episode (broadcast in 1998), Jenny gives birth to her first child. At that time, Ripley had never experienced childbirth, so copied birth scenes she had seen in other television series.^[22] An Independent review of the first series in November 1998 noted, "Fay Ripley has a range of quirky mannerisms that are more reminiscent of Elaine in Seinfeld than of any other Brit-com woman."^[23] The character also gained Ripley public recognition; after being noticed by a member of staff in Marks & Spencer, she was so pleased that she invited the woman to dinner.^[3]

Ripley's performance in the first series won her a nomination for Best TV Comedy Actress at the British Comedy Awards 1999.^[24] For her performance in the third series (2000), in which her character separates from her husband and dates another man (played by Ben Miles), she was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress.^[25] During pre-production of the fourth series (2001), Ripley announced to the producers that she would be leaving the show, partly because she did not want to spend five months living in Manchester away from her home in London and wanted to spend more time with her husband, and partly to take other roles which she would otherwise not be able to do. She asked the writer Mike Bullen to either kill off Jenny or have her lose a limb. Bullen refused and instead wrote a plot in which Jenny moves to New York.^[5] Ripley returned to the series for a guest appearance in the final episode (2003). She had originally planned not to return to the show, but reprised the role so she could have an on-screen record of the final stages of her pregnancy with her first child.^[3]

In 2000, Ripley appeared in the British dogme film The Announcement,^[5] as well as playing lead female character Grace Bingley—opposite Paul Rhys—in the Granada television pilot I Saw You, which used many of the same production staff as Cold Feet. David Belcher of The Herald called Ripley "perfectly scatty, tousled and self-sufficient" in the role,^[26] and Joe Joseph of The Times complimented her comic timing.^[27] Ripley returned to I Saw You for a three-episode miniseries in 2002. She considers I Saw You, in which she acted alongside her husband Daniel Lapaine, the television show she is most proud to have worked on.^[28]

Leading roles[link]

Having left Cold Feet, Ripley began to take on more leading roles; her first role was as housewife Deanna in the BBC thriller Green-Eyed Monster, which was broadcast in September 2001. She researched her character, a murderer, by visiting a coroner.^[6] Guardian critic Gareth McLean wrote of her performance, "Ripley did a good job of exorcising the ghost of Jenny Gifford [...] by coolly cranking up the insane desperation and needy malevolence to an impressive degree."^[29] In 2002, she played domestic abuse victim Donna Massey in Danny Brocklehurst's The Stretford Wives. Ripley was initially not eager to play another character from around Manchester so soon after leaving Cold Feet, but she changed her mind after reading the script. She did not research spousal abuse to play her character, a woman struggling to bring up her two children in a run-down house while her husband is imprisoned, because she did not find it difficult to "work out what it's like to be scared and want to protect your kids".^[30] Also in 2002, Ripley played Rose Bell in the ITV post-war period drama Dead Gorgeous, alongside Helen McCrory. The following year, she provided the voice of Meg in the ITV adaptation of the Meg and Mog children's books, before playing Jill in the third series of the BBC One sitcom Bedtime at the end of 2003.^[18]

In 2004, Ripley had her first of three on-screen partnerships with Martin Clunes, playing Jane White in the CBBC adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman.^[31] The following year, she played the guest role of corrupt police inspector Sam Phillips in the BBC TV series Hustle, a role that received praise from The Times and The Sun newspapers.^[32][33] In 2006, Ripley played the role of child abductor Linda Holder in the two-part ITV drama Bon Voyage, starring alongside Ben Miles, Rachael Blake and Daniel Ryan. She was offered the part without having to audition, and took it because she wanted the opportunity to play an antagonist. She liked the style of Canadian director John Fawcett in making the thriller, as it differed to that of other British thrillers, which she believed were poorly filmed. Ripley filmed the role in Canada during the later weeks of her second pregnancy, so her character was dressed in baggy clothes to hide her bump. Her pregnancy also caused changes to the script; originally her character was to run through a forest, fall off a cliff and "die a gruesome death".^[34] Reviewing, Thomas Sutcliffe of The Independent and Gareth McLean of The Guardian noted that Ripley's pregnancy was poorly disguised.^[35][36] In complimenting the performance of the whole cast, Brian McIver of the Daily Record praised Ripley's portrayal of Linda as "scary but sympathetic".^[37]

Bon Voyage marked Ripley's last television acting appearance until 2009. During that time she appeared as a guest on panel shows and talk shows.^[18] In 2009, she returned to television screens as Nicola Perrin alongside Martin Clunes' eponymous character in the BBC One sitcom Reggie Perrin. She took the role because she had previously worked with Clunes and the writer Simon Nye.^[38] As the series was Ripley's first studio sitcom, she approached the role with apprehension; she told The Independent on Sunday, "I basically just hung off Martin's coat-tails and hoped for the best."^[39] Ripley compared Nicola to Reggie's house-bound wife Elizabeth in the original series, noting that the modern character needed a job and independence from her husband because of changes in society.^[31] She reprised the role in the second series in 2010, after which the series was cancelled.^[38][40] 2009 also saw the broadcast of Monday Monday, an ITV comedy drama series in which Ripley plays Christine Frances, an alcoholic human resources manager at a supermarket head office that moves from London to Leeds. She took the role because it was different to characters she had previously played.^[41]

Other work[link]

During her time on Cold Feet, Ripley hosted the Channel 4 show Sofa Melt, a relationships chat show in the vein of Trisha. The show lasted for one series of 60 episodes, broadcast in 1999. In Scotland on Sunday, critic Stewart Hennessey called Ripley's presenting fantastic and called the show itself "utterly without any intelligent merit whatsoever. It is just unmissable because the people on it are hilariously stupid. Set the vid, show it at parties."^[42] Ripley said of the show retrospectively, "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever done."^[43] In 2003, she presented a short film advocating Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the BBC's Big Read series^[44] and in 2009, she presented an episode of the Blighty documentary series My Brilliant Britain.^[45]

In 2004, she appeared on the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment of Top Gear, where she discussed her car history with presenter Jeremy Clarkson. On her celebrity lap of the Top Gear test track, she achieved a lap time of 1:53, making her 38th on the Suzuki Liana leader board.^[46] The same year, she participated in a major advertising venture by The National Lottery, playing "Lady Luck" alongside a unicorn voiced by Graham Norton.^[47] In 2008, she appeared alongside Martin Clunes in a series of advertisements for Tesco Direct^[48] and, since 2009, has starred with Mark Addy in a series of adverts for Tesco's various brands.^[49]

In 2007, Ripley announced that she would be writing a cookbook about family food. She said, "I want to help people prepare good food for their kids, really practical stuff that's easy, quick, healthy and you can whizz up in the blender for the baby."^[50] Fay's Family Food was published by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books, in April 2009^[51] and was selected by Marie-Claire Digby of The Irish Times as a "summer read".^[52] Ripley's second book, entitled What's For Dinner, was published in April 2012. Since the release of her first book, she has resisted offers from television production companies to make her own cookery series.^[53]

Personal life[link]

Ripley met English actor James Purefoy when the two were starring in the eponymous roles in a college production of Romeo and Juliet in 1983. They began an 11-year relationship that ended when Ripley was 27.^[3][5] Ripley said of the relationship in 2006, "We were just kids when we met and, therefore, the relationship had more than run its course."^[3] She was single for five years, before being introduced to Australian actor Daniel Lapaine at a party hosted by mutual friends. Neither of them thought the other was interested in dating and they drifted apart. After meeting again on separate holidays in New York, they began dating^[3][54] and married in October 2001 in a ceremony in Tuscany, Italy. Ripley gave birth to the couple's first child in October 2002, a daughter they named Parker.^[55] She gave birth to their first son, Sonny, in October 2006.^[11]

Ripley is a patron of several charities and causes. In 2007 she took part in What's it going to take?, a campaign by Women's Aid to raise awareness of domestic abuse against women.^[56] She visited Tanzania with ActionAid in October 2008 to raise awareness of child sponsorship. While in the country, Ripley visited community projects set up by ActionAid in Bagamoyo and Mkuranga.^[57] Ripley was already sponsoring a child and had been asked by ActionAid to participate in a visit but had always declined because of conflicts with her work.^[58] Ripley also fronted a "Climate Action Now" protest with novelist Rebecca Frayn and actress Rula Lenska in 2008, opposing government support of the then planned third runway at Heathrow Airport.^[59]

Filmography[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Ripley, Fay (2009). Fay's Family Food. London: Michael Joseph. ISBN 0-7181-5460-6.
• Ripley, Fay (2012). What's for Dinner?. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-744532-6.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Fay Ripley at the Internet Movie Database

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Robert Owen
Born	(1771-05-14)14 May 1771 Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales
Died	17 November 1858(1858-11-17) (aged 87) Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales
Occupation	Co-operator; social reformer, factory owner
Spouse	Caroline Dale
Children	Jackson Dale (1799) Robert Dale (1801) William (1802) Anne Caroline (1805) Jane Dale (1805) David Dale (1807) Richard Dale (1809) Mary (1810)
Parents	Robert Owen and Anne Owen

Robert Owen (14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.

Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars: First, no one was responsible for his [] will and his [] own actions because his whole character is formed independently of himself; people are products of their heredity and environment, hence his support for education and labour reform, rendering him a pioneer in human capital investment. Second, all religions are based on the same ridiculous imagination, that make man a weak, imbecile animal; a furious bigot and fanatic; or a miserable hypocrite; (though in his later years he embraced Spiritualism).^[1] Third, support for the putting-out system instead of the factory system^{[citation needed]}.

Biography[link]

Robert Owen was born in Newtown, a small market town in Montgomeryshire, Mid Wales, in 1771. He was the sixth of seven children. His father, also named Robert Owen, had a small business as a saddler and ironmonger. Owen's mother was a Miss Williams, and came from one of the prosperous farming families.^[2] Here young Owen received almost all his school education, which ended at the age of ten. In 1787, after serving in a draper's shop for some years, he settled in London. He travelled to Manchester, and obtained employment at Satterfield's Drapery in St. Ann's Square (a plaque currently marks the site). By the time he was 21 he was a mill manager in Manchester at the Chorlton Twist Mills. His entrepreneurial spirit, management skill and progressive moral views were emerging by the early 1790s. In 1793, he was elected as a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, where the ideas of reformers and philosophers of the Enlightenment were discussed. He also became a committee member of the Manchester Board of Health which was set up to promote improvements in the health and working conditions of factory workers.

During a visit to Glasgow he fell in love with Caroline Dale the daughter of the New Lanark mill's proprietor David Dale. Owen induced his partners to purchase New Lanark, and after his marriage to Caroline in September 1799, he set up home there. He was manager and part owner of the mills (January 1810). Encouraged by his great success in the management of cotton mills in Manchester, he hoped to conduct New Lanark on higher principles and focus less on commercial principles.

The mill of New Lanark had been started in 1785 by Dale and Richard Arkwright. The water-power afforded by the falls of the Clyde made it a great attraction. About two thousand people had associations with the mills. Five hundred of them were children who were brought at the age of five or six from the poorhouses and charities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The children had been well treated by Dale, but the general condition of the people was very unsatisfactory. Many of the workers were in the lowest levels of the population; theft, drunkenness, and other vices were common; education and sanitation were neglected; and most families lived in one room. The respectable country people refused to submit to the long hours and demoralising drudgery of the mills.

Many employers operated the truck system, whereby payment to the workers was made in part or totally by tokens. These tokens had no value outside the mill owner's "truck shop". The owners were able to supply shoddy goods to the truck shop and charge top prices. A series of "Truck Acts" (1831–1887) stopped this abuse. The Acts made it an offence not to pay employees in common currency. Owen opened a store where the people could buy goods of sound quality at little more than wholesale cost, and he placed the sale of alcohol under strict supervision. He sold quality goods and passed on the savings from the bulk purchase of goods to the workers. These principles became the basis for the cooperative shops in Britain that continue to trade today.

His greatest success was in the support of the young, to which he devoted special attention. He was the founder of infant childcare in Great Britain, especially in Scotland. Though his reform ideas resemble European reform ideas of the time, he was likely not influenced by the overseas views; his ideas of the ideal education were his own.

He was at first regarded with suspicion as a stranger but he soon won the confidence of his people. The mills continued to have great commercial success, but some of Owen's schemes involved considerable expense, which displeased his partners. Tired of the restrictions imposed on him by men who wished to conduct the business on the ordinary principles, in 1813 Owen arranged to have them bought out by new found investors. These, including Jeremy Bentham and a well-known Quaker, William Allen, were content to accept just £5000 return on their capital, allowing Owen a freer scope for his philanthropy. In the same year, Owen first authored several essays in which he expounded on the principles which underlay his education philosophy.

Owen had originally been a follower of the classical liberal and utilitarian Jeremy Bentham. However, as time passed Owen became more and more socialist, whereas Bentham thought that free markets (in particular, the rights for workers to move and choose their employers) would free the workers from the excess power of the capitalists.

At an early age he had lost all belief in the prevailing forms of religion and had thought out a creed for himself, which he considered an entirely new and original discovery. The chief points in this philosophy were that man's character is made not by him but for him, that it has been formed by circumstances over which he had no control, that he is not a proper subject either of praise or blame. These principles lead up to the practical conclusion that the great secret in the right formation of man's character is to place him under the proper influences–physical, moral and social–from his earliest years. The principles of the irresponsibility of man and of the effect of early influences form the key to Owen's whole system of education and social amelioration. They are embodied in his first work, A New View of Society, or Essays on the Principle of the Formation of the Human Character, the first of four essays appearing in 1813. Owen's new views theoretically belong to a very old system of philosophy, and his originality is to be found only in his benevolent application of them.

Robert Owen's house in New Lanark

For the next few years Owen's work at New Lanark continued to have a national and even a European significance. His schemes for the education of his workers attained to something like completion on the opening of the institution at New Lanark in 1816. He was a zealous supporter of the factory legislation resulting in the Factory Act of 1819, which greatly disappointed him. He had interviews and communications with the leading members of government, including the premier, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Lord Liverpool, and with many of the rulers and leading statesmen of Europe.

New principles were also adopted by Robert Owen in raising the standard of goods produced. Above each machinist's workplace, a cube with different coloured faces was installed. Depending on the quality of the work and the amount produced, a different colour was used. The worker then had some indication to others of his work's quality. The employee had an interest in working to his best. Though not in itself a great incentive, the conditions at New Lanark for the workers and their families were idyllic for the time.

New Lanark itself became a much frequented place of pilgrimage for social reformers, statesmen, and royal personages, including Nicholas, later emperor of Russia. According to the unanimous testimony of all who visited it, New Lanark appeared singularly good. The manners of the children, brought up under his system, were beautifully graceful, genial and unconstrained; health, plenty, and contentment prevailed; drunkenness was almost unknown; and illegitimacy was extremely rare. The relationship between Owen and his workers remained excellent, and all the operations of the mill proceeded with the utmost smoothness and regularity. The business was a great commercial success.

Plans for alleviating poverty through Socialism (1817)[link]

A statue commemorating Owen in Manchester, in front of The Co-operative Bank.

Robert Owen's work had been that of a philanthropist. His first departure in socialism took place in 1817, and was embodied in a report communicated to the committee of the House of Commons on the Poor Law.

The general misery and stagnation of trade consequent on the termination of the Napoleonic Wars was engrossing the attention of the country. After tracing the special causes connected with the wars which had led to such a deplorable state of things, Owen pointed out that the permanent cause of distress was to be found in the competition of human labor with machinery, and that the only effective remedy was the united action of men and the subordination of machinery.

His proposals for the treatment of poverty were based on these principles. Communities of about twelve hundred persons each should be settled on quantities of land from 1,000 to 1,500 acres (4 to 6 km²), all living in one large building in the form of a square, with public kitchen and mess-rooms. Each family should have its own private apartments and the entire care of the children till the age of three, after which they should be brought up by the community; their parents would have access to them at meals and all other proper times. He pursued to create a life of complete equality in regards to wages in which each person in the society (after the age of 15) would receive according to their needs.

These communities might be established by individuals, by parishes, by counties, or by the state; in every case there should be effective supervision by duly qualified persons. Work, and the enjoyment of its results, should be in common. The size of his community was no doubt partly suggested by his village of New Lanark; and he soon proceeded to advocate such a scheme as the best form for the re-organization of society in general.

Its fully developed form (as it did not change much during Owen's lifetime) was as follows. He considered an association of from 500 to 3000 as the fit number for a good working community. While mainly agricultural, it should possess all the best machinery, should offer every variety of employment, and should, as far as possible, be self-contained. "As these townships" (as he also called them) "should increase in number, unions of them federatively united shall be formed in circles of tens, hundreds and thousands", till they should embrace the whole world in a common interest.

In Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race, Owen asserts and reasserts that character is formed by a combination of Nature or God and the circumstances of the individual's experience. Owen provides little real evaluation of the subject but agrees with Socrates' general overview.

Community Experiment in America (1825)[link]

New Moral World, Owen's envisioned successor of New Harmony. Owenites fired bricks to build it, but construction never took place.

In 1825, such an experiment was attempted under the direction of his disciple, Abram Combe, at Orbiston near Glasgow; and in the next year Owen himself began another at New Harmony, Indiana, U.S., sold to him by George Rapp. After a trial of about two years both failed completely. Neither of them was a pauper experiment; but it must be said that the members were of the most motley description, many worthy people of the highest aims being mixed with vagrants, adventurers, and crotchety, wrongheaded enthusiasts, or in the words of Owen's son "a heterogeneous collection of radicals... honest latitudinarians, and lazy theorists, with a sprinkling of unprincipled sharpers thrown in."

Josiah Warren, who was one of the participants in the New Harmony Society, asserted that community was doomed to failure due to a lack of individual sovereignty and private property. He says of the community: "We had a world in miniature — we had enacted the French revolution over again with despairing hearts instead of corpses as a result. ...It appeared that it was nature's own inherent law of diversity that had conquered us ...our "united interests" were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation..." (Periodical Letter II 1856) Warren's observations on the reasons for the community's failure led to the development of American individualist anarchism, of which he was its original theorist. The Forestville Commonwealth Owenite community at Earlton, New York was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.^[3]

London[link]

Portrait of Robert Owen (1771 - 1858) by John Cranch (painter), 1845

After a long period of friction with William Allen and some of his other partners, Owen resigned all connection with New Lanark in 1828. His actual words to William Allen at the time are often quoted as being: "All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer".^[4][5] On his return from America, he made London the center of his activity. Most of his means having been sunk in the New Harmony experiment, he was no longer a flourishing capitalist but the head of a vigorous propaganda machine, in which socialism and secularism combined. One of the most interesting features of the movement at this period was the establishment in 1832 of the National Equitable Labour Exchange system, a Time-based currency in which exchange was effected by means of labour notes; this system superseded the usual means of exchange and middlemen. The London exchange lasted until 1833, and a Birmingham branch operated for only a few months until July 1833.

The word "socialism" first became current in the discussions of the "Association of all Classes of all Nations" which Owen formed in 1835^[6] with himself as Preliminary Father.^[7] During these years his secularistic teaching gained such influence among the working classes as to give occasion for the statement in the Westminster Review (1839) that his principles were the actual creed of a great portion of them.

At this period, some more communistic experiments were made, of which the most important were that at Ralahine, in County Clare, Ireland, and that at Tytherly in Hampshire. The former (1831) proved a remarkable success for three-and-a-half years until the proprietor, having ruined himself by gambling, had to sell out. Tytherly, begun in 1839, failed absolutely.

By 1846 the only permanent result of Owen's agitation, so zealously carried on by public meetings, pamphlets, periodicals, and occasional treatises remained the co-operative movement, and for the time even that seemed to have utterly collapsed. He died at his native town on 17 November 1858.

Role in spiritualism[link]

In 1854, at the age of 83, and despite his previous antipathy to religion, Owen was converted to spiritualism after a series of "sittings" with the American medium Maria B. Hayden (credited with introducing spiritualism to England). Owen made a public profession of his new faith in his publication The Rational quarterly review and later wrote a pamphlet entitled The future of the Human race; or great glorious and future revolution to be effected through the agency of departed spirits of good and superior men and women.^[8]

Owen claimed to have had mediumistic contact with the spirits of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others, the purpose of whose communications was, "to change the present, false, disunited and miserable state of human existence, for a true, united and happy state...to prepare the world for universal peace, and to infuse into all the spirit of charity, forbearance and love."^[9]

After Owen's death spiritualists claimed that his spirit dictated the "Seven Principles of Spiritualism" to the medium Emma Hardinge Britten in 1871.^[10]

Children[link]

Robert and Caroline Owen's first child died in infancy. They had seven surviving children, four sons and three daughters: Robert Dale (born 1801), William (1802), Anne Caroline (1805), Jane Dale (1805), David Dale (1807), Richard Dale (1809) and Mary (1810). Owen's four sons, Robert Dale, William, David Dale, and Richard, all became citizens of the United States. Anne Caroline and Mary (together with their mother, Caroline) died in the 1830s. Jane, the remaining daughter, joined her brothers in America, where she married Robert Henry Fauntleroy.

Robert Dale Owen, the eldest (1801–1877), was for long an able exponent in his adopted country of his father's doctrines. In 1836-1839 and 1851-1852 he served as a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and in 1844-1847 was a Representative in Congress, where he drafted the bill for the founding of the Smithsonian Institution. He was elected a member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1850, and was instrumental in securing to widows and married women control of their property and the adoption of a common free school system. He later succeeded in passing a state law giving greater freedom in divorce. From 1853 to 1858, he was United States minister at Naples. He was a strong believer in spiritualism and was the author of two well-known books on the subject: Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (1859) and The Debatable Land Between this World and the Next (1872).

Owen's third son, David Dale Owen (1807–1860), was in 1839 appointed a United States geologist who made extensive surveys of the north-west, which were published by order of Congress. The youngest son, Richard Dale Owen (1810–1890), became a professor of natural science at Nashville University.

Works[link]

• 1813. A New View Of Society, Essays on the Formation of Human Character. London.
• 1815. Observations on the Effect of the Manufacturing System. 2nd edn, London.
• 1817. Report to the Committee for the Relief of the Manufacturing Poor. In The Life of Robert Owen written by Himself, 2 vols, London, 1857-8.
• 1818. Two memorials behalf of the working classes. In The Life of Robert Owen written by Himself, 2 vols, London, 1857-8.
• 1819. An Address to the Master Manufacturers of Great Britain. Bolton.
• 1821. Report to the County of Lanark of a Plan for relieving Public Distress. Glasgow: Glasgow University Press.
• 1823. An Explanation of the Cause of Distress which pervades the civilized parts of the world. London. & Paris.
• 1830. Was one of the founders of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union (GNCTU)
• 1832. An Address to All Classes in the State. London.
• 1849. The Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race. London.

Robert Owen wrote numerous works about his system. Of these, the most notable are:

• the New View of Society
• the Report communicated to the Committee on the Poor Law
• the Book of the New Moral World
• Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race

• Owen's major works are reprinted in (Gregory Claeys, editor), The Selected Works of Robert Owen

(4 vols., London, Pickering and Chatto, 1993) elephant manThe Robert Owen Collection, that includes papers and letters as well as copies of pamphlets and books by him and about him is deposited with the National Co-operative Archive, UK.^[11]

See also[link]

• José María Arizmendiarrieta
• Labour voucher
• William King (doctor)

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Welsh Biography Online

Biographies[link]

• Robert Owen. Life of Owen by himself (London, 1857)
• Robert Dale Owen. Threading my Way, Twenty-seven Years of Autobiography(London: Trubner & Co., 1874) - R. D. Owen was the son of Robert Owen.

There are also Lives of Owen by:

• A. J. Booth. Robert Owen, the Founder of Socialism in England (London, 1869)
• G. D. H. Cole. Life of Robert Owen (London, Ernest Benn Ltd., 1925)
• Lloyd Jones. The Life, Times, and Labours of Robert Owen (London, 1889).
• A. L. Morton. The Life and Ideas of Robert Owen (London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1962)
• F. A. Packard. Life of Robert Owen (Philadelphia: Ashmead & Evans, 1866)
• Frank Podmore Robert Owen: a biography - Vol 1 (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1906).
• Frank Podmore Robert Owen: a biography - Vol 2 (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1906).
• David Santilli. Life Of the Mill Man (London, B.T. Batsford Ltd, 1987)
• W. L. Sergeant. Robert Owen and his social philosophy (London, 1860)
• Richard Tames. Radicals, Railways & Reform (London, B.T. Batsford Ltd, 1986)

Other works about him[link]

• Arthur Bestor, Backwoods Utopias, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950, second edition, 1970).
• Gregory Claeys. Machinery, Money and the Millennium: From Moral Economy to Socialism 1815-1860

(Princeton University Press, 1987)

• Gregory Claeys. Citizens and Saints. Politics and Anti Politics in Early British Socialism

(Cambridge University Press, 1989)

• R. E. Davies. The life of Robert Owen, philanthropist and social reformer, an appreciation (Robert Sutton, 1907)
• R. A. Davis and F. J. O'Hagan, Robert Owen (London; Continuum Press, 2010)
• E. Dolleans. Robert Owen (Paris, 1905).
• I. Donnachie, Robert Owen. Owen of New Lanark and New Harmony (2000)
• Auguste Fabre. Un socialiste pratique, Robert Owen (Nìmes, Bureaux de l'Émancipation, 1896).
• John F. C. Harrison. Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America: Quest for the New Moral World (New York, 1969).
• Alexander Herzen. My Past and Thoughts (University of California Press, 1982) - one chapter is devoted to Owen.
• G. J. Holyoake, The history of co-operation in England: its literature and its advocates - Vol 1 (London, 1906)
• G. J. Holyoake, The history of co-operation in England: its literature and its advocates - Vol 2 (London, 1906)
• The National Library of Wales. A bibliography of Robert Owen, the socialist (1914)
• H. Simon, Robert Owen: sein Leben und seine Bedeutung für die Gegenwart (Jena, 1905)

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Robert Owen

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Robert Owen

Wikisource has the text of a 1905 New International Encyclopedia article about Robert Owen.

• Works by or about Robert Owen in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Brief biography at the New Lanark World Heritage Site
• The Robert Owen Museum
• Video of Owen's wool mill
• Brief biography at Cotton Times
• Owen at American Atheists
• Brief biography at the University of Evansville
• Brief biography at The Co-operative College
• "Robert Owen and the Co-operative movement"
• Brief biography at The History Guide
• Brief biography at age-of-the-sage.org
• Heaven On Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism at PBS
• "Robert Owen's Parallelogram" by Joseph V. O'Brien
• Robert Owen and the 19th century utopian alternatives
• Robert Owen at Gathering the Jewels the website of Welsh cultural history
• The correspondence of Robert Owen is held at The National Co-operative Archive, Manchester.

Zoë Wanamaker, CBE (born 13 May 1949)^[1][2] is an American-born English actress. She has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company; in films, including the Harry Potter series; and in a number of television productions, including a long-time role as Susan Harper in the sitcom My Family. Wanamaker has been nominated for a BAFTA Film Award, two BAFTA TV Awards, Four Tony's and nine Olivier Awards, winning two.

Early life and family[link]

Wanamaker was born in New York City, the daughter of Canadian-born actress and radio performer Charlotte Holland, and American-born actor, film director and radio producer Sam Wanamaker, who decided not to return to the United States after being blacklisted in 1952.^[1]

Wanamaker's parents were Jewish, though she had a non-religious and non-observant upbringing. Her family was of Ukrainian extraction.^[3] The BBC documentary Who Do You Think You Are? broadcast on 24 February 2009, revealed that Wanamaker's paternal grandfather Maurice Wanamaker (originally Manus Watmacher) was a tailor (born 1895) in Nikolaev in what is now Ukraine.

Wanamaker was educated at the independent King Alfred School in Hampstead, London, and at Sidcot School, a Quaker boarding school in Somerset. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama.^[1][4]

In November 1994, Wanamaker married actor and dramatist Gawn Grainger.^[1]

Career[link]

Stage[link]

Wanamaker's career started in the theatre. From 1976 to 1984 she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. She won an Olivier Award for her 1979 performance in Once In a Lifetime^[5] and a second for Sophocles' Electra in 1997.^[6] In 1985, she played Verdi's wife Giuseppina Strepponi in the original production of After Aida. She appeared on stage playing the part of Beatrice opposite Simon Russell Beale as Benedick in the National Theatre's production of Much Ado About Nothing. She has received Tony Award nominations for her performances in Piaf, Loot, Electra, and Awake and Sing!.^[7]

In 1997, Zoe Wanamaker was the first person to speak on the stage of the newly-completed replica theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, on London's South Bank.^[8] This was in recognition of the role played by her father in founding the new theatre. She subsequently became Honorary President of the Globe.^[9]

From 19 May to 2 October 2010 (extended from 11 September), Wanamaker appeared in Arthur Miller's play All My Sons, portraying the role of Kate Keller at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in London.^[10][11]

Screen[link]

Starting in the early 1980s, Wanamaker began performing on screen, most notably in a number of critically acclaimed television productions, such as the BBC Television production Edge of Darkness; she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for her portrayal of the love interest of a suspected serial killer in the first instalment of the Granada series Prime Suspect.^{[citation needed]}

Television series have included Paradise Postponed (as Charlotte Fanner-Titmuss, 1986) and Love Hurts (1992–94) with Adam Faith.

She played Madam Hooch in the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

She played Clarice, one of the dim-witted twin sisters of Lord Groan in Gormenghast (2000), a BBC television adaptation of Mervyn Peake's trilogy.

Wanamaker portrayed Susan Harper in the BBC situation comedy My Family from 2000 to 2011.

She voiced a CGI character named Lady Cassandra in the Doctor Who episode "The End of the World" (2005), and reprised the role (also appearing in the flesh this time) in the episode "New Earth" (2006).

Wanamaker lent her voice to the 2008 Xbox 360 game Fable II as the blind Seeress Theresa, who guides the playing character throughout the game.

She has played Ariadne Oliver in several episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot.

Honours[link]

Wanamaker holds both American and British nationalities, having become a British citizen in 2000, specifically so that she could receive a CBE from the Queen at Buckingham Palace, rather than an honorary decoration from the British Foreign Secretary.^{[citation needed]} She will be receiving an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of East Anglia in July 2012.^[12]

Charity work[link]

Wanamaker has been a Patron of the UK charity Tree Aid,^[13] since 1997. Tree Aid enables communities in Africa's drylands to fight poverty and become self-reliant, while improving the environment. In 2006 Wanamaker recorded a successful Radio 4 appeal for the charity.^{[citation needed]}

She is a Patron of Dignity in Dying, The Lymphoedema Support Network,^[14] Youth Music Theatre: UK and of the Young Actors' Theatre, Islington. She is also one of the Honorary Patrons of the London children's charity Scene & Heard.^[15]

Filmography[link]