Coordinates: 52°48′24″N 2°07′02″W / 52.8066°N 2.1171°W
Stafford (/ˈstæfəd/) is the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands of England. It lies approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of Wolverhampton, 18 miles (29 km) south of Stoke-on-Trent and 24 miles (39 km) north-west of Birmingham. The population in 2001 was 63,681 and that of the wider borough of Stafford 122,000, the fourth largest in the county after Stoke-on-Trent, Tamworth and Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Stafford means 'ford' by a 'staithe' (landing place). The original settlement was on dry sand and gravel peninsula that provided a strategic crossing point in the marshy valley of the River Sow, a tributary of the River Trent. There is still a large area of marshland northwest of the town, which has always been subject to flooding, such as in 1947, 2000 and 2007.
It is thought Stafford was founded in about 700 AD by a Mercian prince called Bertelin who, according to legend, established a hermitage on the peninsula named Betheney or Bethnei. Until recently it was thought that the remains of a wooden preaching cross from this time had been found under the remains of St Bertelin's chapel, next to the later collegiate Church of St Mary in the centre of the town. Recent re-examination of the evidence shows this was a misinterpretation – it was a tree trunk coffin placed centrally in the first, timber, chapel at around the time Æthelflæd founded the burh, in 913 AD. The tree trunk coffin may have been placed there as an object of commemoration or veneration of St Bertelin.
HM Prison Stafford is a Category C men's prison, located in Stafford, Staffordshire, England. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.
Stafford Prison was built on its current site in 1793, and has been in almost continuous use, save a period between 1916 and 1939. It held Irish Internees taken by the British after the 1916 Easter Rising from May. They were released Christmas 1916.
Among its earlier prisoners was George Smith who served several sentences for theft there but began his later work as a hangman while a prisoner, assisting William Calcraft. He officiated at several executions in the prison later in his life, notably that of poisoner William Palmer in 1866.
In November 1998, an inspection report from Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons heavily criticised security at Stafford Prison, after it emerged that inmates were being supplied with drugs flown in on paper planes. Inmates were fashioning strips of paper into planes, then attaching lines to them and flying them over the 19-foot (5.8-metre) perimeter wall. The lines were then used to pull packages containing drugs and other banned substances back over the wall. The prison was also criticised for being overcrowded, under-resourced, and failing to prepare prisoners for release.
Stafford is a small city in the U.S. state of Texas, within Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area. The city is mostly in Fort Bend County, with a small portion in Harris County. As of the 2010 census, Stafford's population was 17,693.
William Stafford established a plantation with a cane mill and a horse-powered cotton gin in 1830. On April 15, 1836, during the Texas Revolution, the forces of Antonio López de Santa Anna stopped at Stafford's plantation and ordered it to be burned. Stafford rebuilt his plantation and resided there until his 1840 death. A settlement called Stafford's Point established itself around the plantation; it became a townsite in August 1853 when the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway began stopping at Stafford's Point. Stafford's Point had a post office from 1854 to 1869. Staffordville had a post office from January 5, 1869 to February 26, 1869. The settlement, now known as Stafford, operated a post office from 1869 to 1918; the post office reopened in 1929.
The Borough of Stafford is a local government district with borough status in Staffordshire in England. It is named after and includes the town of Stafford. It also includes the smaller town of Stone and numerous villages.
The borough was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the municipal borough of Stafford, Stone urban district, Stafford Rural District and Stone Rural District.
Most its parishes fell within the Hundred of Pirehill.
It has 26 wards: Barlaston and Oulton, Baswich, Chartley, Church Eaton, Common, Coton, Eccleshall, Forebridge, Fulford, Gnosall and Woodseaves, Haywood and Hixon, Highfield and Western Downs, Holmcroft, Littleworth, Manor, Milford, Milwich, Penkside, Rowley, Seighford, St. Michael's, Stonefield and Christchurch, Swynnerton, Tillington, Walton and Weeping Cross.
Coordinates: 52°48′18.05″N 2°6′59.99″W / 52.8050139°N 2.1166639°W
Great Britain and Ireland was a set of special commemorative postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail in 2006. The stamps were the final part of the British Journey series, which had previously featured Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. It was available as mint stamps, as a presentation pack, stamps cards, and a first day cover.
These stamps are the final issue in the British Journey series; which started in 2003 with Scotland, followed in 2004 with Northern Ireland and Wales, and South West England in 2005. The series was brought to a premature end with this issue due to a lack of popularity amongst collectors.
The stamps were issued as a block of stamps, five wide by two deep. The photographs selected for this issue show no sky but are intended to demonstrate the colours and textures of the United Kingdom. All values are first class.
The Kingdom of England i/ˈɪŋɡlənd/ was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the 10th century—when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms—until 1707—when it was united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
In the early 11th century the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, united by Æthelstan (r. 927–939), became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway. The Norman conquest of England in 1066 led to the transfer of the English capital city and chief royal residence from the Anglo-Saxon one at Winchester to Westminster, and the City of London quickly established itself as England's largest and principal commercial centre.
Histories of the kingdom of England from the Norman conquest of 1066 conventionally distinguish periods named after successive ruling dynasties: Norman 1066–1154, Plantagenet 1154–1485, Tudor 1485–1603 and Stuart 1603–1714 (interrupted by the Interregnum of 1649–1660). Dynastically, all English monarchs after 1066 ultimately claim descent from the Normans; the distinction of the Plantagenets is merely conventional, beginning with Henry II (reigned 1154-1189) as from that time, the Angevin kings became "more English in nature"; the houses of Lancaster and York are both Plantagenet cadet branches, the Tudor dynasty claimed descent from Edward III via John Beaufort and James VI and I of the House of Stuart claimed descent from Henry VII via Margaret Tudor.
England were a progressive rock group active in the late 1970s, and briefly reformed in 2006. The band is notable for their album Garden Shed released on Arista Records, and for keyboardist Robert Webb playing a Mellotron sawn in half.
The band was formed in 1975 by drummer Mark Ibbotson, and, after a variety of prototype groups, stabilised around a line-up of himself, bassist Martin Henderson, guitarist Jamie Moses and keyboardist Robert Webb. Moses and Webb had previously collaborated on an unreleased album. Ibbottson owned a Mk II Mellotron, which Webb took an interest in, later saying "it opens up possibilities. It's having control like the conductor of an orchestra." To make the instrument portable, Webb sawed the instrument in half, rehousing the left-hand manual and the right-hand tapes (which contained the lead sounds on a Mk II model) it in a new case. After a number of gigs at the Hazlitt Theatre in Maidstone, Moses quit and was replaced by Franc Holland. In March 1976, immediately following a showcase gig that resulted in a contract with Arista Records, Ibbotson quit the band and was replaced by Jode Leigh.