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Map of the North Channel

Relief map of the Irish Sea. The North Channel lies to the north of the Irish Sea, and the St George's Channel to the south. (Major ports shown as red dots. Freight-only ports as blue dots)

The North Channel (known in Irish and Scottish Gaelic as Sruth na Maoile, and alternatively in English as the Straits of Moyle or Sea of Moyle) is the strait which separates northeastern Ireland from southwestern Scotland. It is part of the marine area officially classified as the "Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland" by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO).^[1] In the nineteenth century, Alexander Keith Johnston's suggested name St Patrick's Channel had currency, but it was rejected by the hydrographic department.^[2]

The deepest part is called Beaufort's Dyke. The Channel connects the Irish Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, and Bowers was thus a favourite haunt of privateers preying on British merchant shipping in wars up to the 19th century; in 1778, during the American Revolutionary War it was also the site of a naval duel between American captain John Paul Jones's Ranger and the Royal Navy's Drake. It is crossed by a large number of ferry services. In 1953, it was the scene of a serious maritime disaster, the sinking of the ferry Princess Victoria.

Unionist Northern Irish political leaders for decades lobbied the UK government to construct a rail-link tunnel under the North Channel, the better to integrate Northern Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom. In August 2007 the Centre for Cross-Border Studies proposed the construction of a 34 km (21 mi) long rail bridge or tunnel, estimating that it may cost approximately £3.5 billion.^[3] In the Victorian era, engineers proposed a rail tunnel between Stranraer and Belfast.^[4]

This channel was formerly known as the Irish Channel.^[5][6][7]

Swimming[link]

The Irish Long Distance Swimming Association ILDSA has provided authentication observers for swimmers attempting to cross the approx 22 mile span between Northern Ireland and the Mull of Galloway`. According to the ILDSA, this was first accomplished in 1947 by Tom Blower. Since that time, only 14 additional solo-swim attempts have been successful, accomplished by 10 different individuals.^[8][9]:

1. 1947-07-27 Tom Blower
2. 1970-09-11 Kevin Murphy
3. 1972-00-00 Kevin Murphy
4. 1973-08-11 Ted Keenan
5. 1988-08-22 Alison Streeter
6. 1988-08-23 Margaret Kidd
7. 1989-00-00 Kevin Murphy
8. 1989-00-00 Alison Streeter
9. 1997-00-00 Alison Streeter
10. 1999-07-27 Paul Lewis
11. 2000-07-21 Steve Price
12. 2004-07-31 Colm O´Neill
13. 2008-09-12 Colleen Blair
14. 2010-08-31 Steve Redmond
15. 2010-09-01 Anne Marie Ward

References[link]

The Irish Long Distance Swimming Association ILDSA has provided authentication observers for swimmers attempting to cross the approx 22 mile span between Northern Ireland and the Mull of Galloway`. According to the ILDSA, this was first accomplished in 1947 byTom Blower. Since that time, only 17 additional solo-swim attempts have been successful, and only 7 relay teams.

28/7/1947. Tom Blower ( England ) . Ireland to Scotland . 15 hrs 26 mins.

11/9/1970. Kevin Murphy(England) .Ireland to Scotland. 11 hrs 21 mins.

29/8/1971. Kevin Murphy(England). Ireland to Scotland. 14 hrs 27 mins.

11/8/1973. Ted Keenan (Ireland). Ireland to Scotland. 18 hrs 27 mins.

22/8/1988. Alison Streeter (England). Ireland to Scotland. 9 hrs 53 mins 42 secs.

23/8/1988. Margaret Kidd (Scotland). Ireland to Scotland. 15 hrs 26 mins 03 secs.

25/8/1989. Alison Streeter (England). Scotland to Ireland. 10 hrs 04 mins.

7/9/1989. Kevin Murphy (England). Scotland to Ireland. 17 hrs 17 mins 48 secs.

18/8/1997. Alison Streeter (England). Scotland to Ireland. 10 hrs 02 mins12 secs.

27/7/1999. Paul lewis (England). Scotland to Ireland. 14 hrs 28 mins.

21/7/2000. Stephen Price (England). Scotland to Ireland. 16 hrs 56 mins.

Colm O Neill (Ireland). Scotland to Ireland. 11 hrs 25 mins 05 secs.

12/9/2008. Colleen Blair (Scotland) . Ireland to Scotland. 15 hrs 23 mins 59 secs.

31/8 2010. Stephen Redmond (Ireland). Scotland to Ireland. 17 hrs 17 mins 01 sec.

1st/2nd/9/2010. Ann Marie Ward (Ireland). Ireland to Scotland. 18 hrs 59 mins 26 secs.

27/7/2011. Craig Lenning (U.S.A.) Ireland to Scotland. 14 hrs 44 mins 50 secs.

2/8/2011. Howard Keech (England) Ireland to Scotland. 13 hrs 25 mins.

Relay teams

27/8/1990. Relay Swim by "Ireland One" (ILDSA). Ireland to Scotland. 12 hrs 03 mns 01 sec.

14/8/1993. Relay Swim by City of Liverpool. Ireland to Scotland. 10 hrs 39 mins 42 secs.

23/6/1996. Relay Swim by City of Dublin. Ireland to Scotland. 12 hrs 44 mins 56 secs.

20/8/1999. Relay Swim by " The All American". Scotland to Ireland. 13 hrs 11 mins 39 secs.

26/8/2002. Relay Swim by City of Liverpool. Scotland to Ireland. 12 hrs 47 mins 41 secs.

6/7/2004. Relay Swim by " The Swilly Trio". Scotland to Ireland. 14 hrs 41 mins 14 secs.

22/8/2011.Relay Swim by Team Camlough. Ireland to Scotland. 12 hrs 21 mins 12 secs.

See also[link]

• Straits of Moyle
• St George's Channel

Coordinates: 55°03′27″N 5°37′19″W / 55.0575°N 5.62194°W / 55.0575; -5.62194

North Channel may refer to

• North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland)
• North Channel (Ontario), body of water along the north shore of Lake Huron, Canada
• North Channel, Hong Kong
• Canal du Nord, France

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) of Melbourne, Derbyshire, England founded the travel agency that in 2007 became Thomas Cook Group.

Early days[link]

Thomas Cook was born to John and Elizabeth Cook, who lived at 9 Quick Close in the village of Melbourne, Derbyshire.^[1] The couple's first child, he was named after Elizabeth's father, Thomas Perkins. John Cook died when Thomas was three years old, and his mother remarried later that same year.

At the age of 10, Cook started working as an assistant to a local market gardener for a wage of six pence a week. At the age of 14, he secured an apprenticeship with John Pegg, and spent five years as a cabinet maker.^[1]

He was brought up as a strict Baptist, and joined his local Temperance Society. In February 1826, Cook became a preacher, and toured the region as a village evangelist, distributing pamphlets, and occasionally working as a cabinet maker to earn money.^[1] After working as a part-time publisher of Baptist and Temperance pamphlets, he became a Baptist minister in 1828.

In 1832, Cook moved to Adam and Eve Street in Market Harborough. Influenced by the local Baptist minister Francis Beardsall, he took the temperance pledge on New Year's Day in 1833. As a part of the temperance movement, he organized meetings and held anti-liquor processions.^[1]

On 3 March 1833, Cook married Marianne Mason. John Mason Cook, their only son, was born on 13 January 1834 .^[1]

The first-ever excursions[link]

Panels from the Thomas Cook Building in Leicester, displaying excursions offered by Thomas Cook

Cook's idea to offer excursions came to him while waiting for the stagecoach on the London Road at Kibworth. With the opening of the extended Midland Counties Railway, he arranged to take a group of 540 temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street station to a rally in Loughborough, eleven miles away. On 5 July 1841, Thomas Cook arranged for the rail company to charge one shilling per person that included rail tickets and food for this train journey. Cook was paid a share of the fares actually charged to the passengers, as the railway tickets, being legal contracts between company and passenger, could not have been issued at his own price. This was the first privately chartered excursion train to be advertised to the general public; Cook himself acknowledging that there had been previous, unadvertised, private excursion trains.^[2] During the following three summers he planned and conducted outings for temperance societies and Sunday-school children. In 1844 the Midland Counties Railway Company agreed to make a permanent arrangement with him provided he found the passengers. This success led him to start his own business running rail excursions for pleasure, taking a percentage of the railway tickets.

Leicester railway station - this was built between 1892 and 1894 to replace, largely on the same site, Campbell Street station, the origin for many of Cook's early tours.

On 4 August 1845 he arranged accommodation for a party to travel from Leicester to Liverpool. In 1846, he took 350 people from Leicester on a tour of Scotland, however his lack of commercial ability led him to bankruptcy. He persisted and found success when he claimed that he arranged for over 165,000 people to attend the Great Exhibition in London. Four years later, he planned his first excursion abroad, when he took a group from Leicester to Calais to coincide with the Paris Exhibition. The following year he started his 'grand circular tours' of Europe. During the 1860s he took parties to Switzerland, Italy, Egypt and United States. Cook established 'inclusive independent travel', whereby the traveller went independently but his agency charged for travel, food and accommodation for a fixed period over any chosen route. Such was his success that the Scottish railway companies withdrew their support between 1862 and 1863 to try the excursion business for themselves.

With John A Mason Cook, he formed a partnership and renamed the travel agency as Thomas Cook and Son. They acquired business premises on Fleet Street, London. By this time, Cook had stopped personal tours and became an agent for foreign or domestic travel. The office also contained a shop which sold essential travel accessories including guide books, luggage, telescopes and footwear. Thomas saw his venture as both religious and social service; his son provided the commercial expertise that allowed the company to expand. In accordance with his beliefs, he and his wife also ran a small temperance hotel above the office. Their business model was refined by the introduction of the 'hotel coupon' in 1866. Detachable coupons in a counterfoil book were issued to the traveller. These were valid for either a restaurant meal or an overnight hotel stay provided they were on Cook's list.

In 1865, the agency organised tours of the United States, picking up passengers from several departure points. John Mason Cook led the excursion which included tours of several Civil War battlefields. A brief but bitter partnership was formed with an American businessman in 1871 called Cook, Son and Jenkins; however after an acrimonious split the agency reverted back to its original name. A round the world tour started in 1872, which for 200 guineas, included a steamship across the Atlantic, a stage coach across America, a paddle steamer to Japan, and an overland journey across China and India, lasting 222 days.

In 1874, Thomas Cook introduced 'circular notes', a product that later became better known by American Express's brand, 'traveller's cheques'.^[3]

Conflicts of interest between father and son were resolved when the son persuaded his father, Thomas Cook, to retire in 1879. He moved back to Leicestershire and lived quietly until his death. The firm's growth was consolidated by John Mason Cook and his two sons, especially by its involvement with military transport and postal services for Britain and Egypt during the 1880s when Cook began organising tours to the Middle East. By 1888, the company had established offices around the world, including three in Australia and one in Auckland, New Zealand, and in 1890, the company sold over 3.25 million tickets.^[4] John Mason Cook promoted, and even led, excursions to, for example, the Middle East where he was described as "the second-greatest man in Egypt".^[4] However, while arranging for the German Emperor Wilhelm II to visit Palestine in 1898, he contracted dysentery and died the following year.

Statue of Thomas Cook near Leicester railway station.

Non-family ownership[link]

John Mason Cook's sons, Frank Henry, Thomas Albert and Ernest Edward, were not nearly as successful as their father and grandfather at running the business. Despite opening a new headquarters in Berkeley Square, London in 1926, ownership of Thomas Cook and Son only remained with the family until 1928, when it was sold to the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. During the 1930s the travel agency changed its focus from tours to Egypt and Palestine. Indeed the company was a principal employer in Egypt, involved in shipping, transport and touring operations. After the outbreak of World War II the Paris headquarters of the Wagons-Lits company was seized by the occupying forces, and the British assets requisitioned by the British government. In 1941, the centenary of the company, Thomas Cook & Son Ltd. was sold to the four major railway companies with the aim of expanding it further.

The company was nationalised in 1948 as part of the British Transport Commission. In the early 1950s the company began promoting 'foreign holidays' (particularly Italy, Spain and Switzerland) by showing information films at town halls throughout Britain. However they did not sell cheap package holidays, which included transport and accommodation, a decision costly to the company. The company went further into decline, and was rescued by a consortium of Trust House Forte, Midland Bank and the Automobile Association that bought the company from the British Government on 26 May 1972.^[5] Midland Bank acquired sole control in 1977. U.S. banking laws prohibited any national banks from owning travel agencies, so the U.S. operations were sold to Dun & Bradstreet in 1975.

After restructuring the company and re-entering the traveller's cheque business the company prospered again. During the 1980s Thomas Cook had its most visible business presence in the U.S., including robust travellers cheque sales to regional U.S. banks. The company had enough business critical mass to set up a computer centre near Princeton, New Jersey. Robert Gaffney and Samuel Malek were two of the notable decision-makers in that era. Robert Maxwell bought substantial holdings in the company in 1988. He was expected to sell his holdings quickly as he was a publisher rather than a travel agent. However, when Crimson/Heritage purchased the U.S. division of Thomas Cook for US$1.3 billion in 1989,^[6] he still maintained a substantial interest in the company until his death.

In June 1992, following the acquisition of Midland Bank by HSBC, Thomas Cook was sold to the German bank Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB) and the charter airline LTU Group for £200 million.

In September 1994 American Express (Amex) bought the corporate travel interests of Thomas Cook Travel Inc. which represented about ten percent of the British company's total revenue. However Amex was not able to buy the venerable Thomas Cook name; an American Express affiliate, Cook Travel Inc. had been operating under that name since 1991 in the United States.

Due to contractual difficulties LTU Group sold its 10% shares to WestLB in May 1995. During 1996 the company bought short-haul operator Sunworld and European city-breaks tour group Time Off. Within three years the company had combined Sunworld, Sunset, Inspirations, Flying Colours and Caledonian Airways into the JMC (for John Mason Cook) brand.

Thomas Cook logo, 1999

A modern Thomas Cook travel agency in Leeds.

On 2 February 1999 the Carlson Leisure Group merged with Thomas Cook into a holding company owned by West LB, Carlson Inc and Preussag Aktiengesellschaft ("Preussag").^[7] However, in mid-2000 Preussag acquired Thomas Cook's rival Thomson Travel and was forced to sell its majority 50.1% stake in Thomas Cook by regulatory authorities.

In March 2001 the Financial Services division was sold to Travelex, who retained the right to use the Thomas Cook brand on Traveller's Cheques for 5 years. In 2002 Thomas Cook was acquired by the German company C&N Touristic AG, which later changed its name to Thomas Cook AG. The group is jointly owned by Lufthansa and Karstadt.

In 2007 Thomas Cook announced a merger with competitor MyTravel, with the new group to be called Thomas Cook Group plc and listed on the London Stock Exchange. The transaction was completed in June 2007 following competition authority clearance. The new group was 51% owned by Arcandor (new name of Karstadt).

Thomas Cook made a controversial business move in 2008, buying out Canadian travel wholesaler IFS Voyages (including Fun Sun Vacations, Intair, Exotik Tours, Boomerang Tours, etc.).

In March 2011 Thomas Cook acquired the UK travel insurance and airport parking provider Essential Travel and launched Thomas Cook Essentials. This was followed by a merger with The Co-operative Travel group on 8 October 2011 to create the UK's largest retail travel network.

At the 2011 AGM Thomas Cook shareholders mounted a "revolt" over executive bonuses, with only 53.2 percent voting in favour of the remuneration report.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Cook

• Thomas Cook Biography
• Article about Thomas Cook