Westward Ho!

Coordinates: 51°02′20″N 4°14′46″W / 51.039°N 4.246°W / 51.039; -4.246

Westward Ho! is a seaside village near Bideford in Devon, England. The A39 road provides access from the towns of Barnstaple, Bideford and Bude. It lies at the south end of Northam Burrows and faces westward into Bideford Bay, opposite Saunton Sands and Braunton Burrows. There is an electoral ward with the same name. The population at the 2011 census was 2,112

Name

Westward Ho! is noted for its unusual place name. The village name comes from the title of Charles Kingsley's novel Westward Ho! (1855), which was set in nearby Bideford. The book was a bestseller, and entrepreneurs saw the opportunity to develop tourism in the area. The Northam Burrows Hotel and Villa Building Company, chaired by Isaac Newton Wallop, 5th Earl of Portsmouth, was formed in 1863, and its prospectus stated:

The hotel was named the Westward Ho! Hotel, and the adjacent villas were also named after the book. As further development took place, the expanding settlement also acquired the name of Westward Ho! The exclamation mark is therefore an intentional part of the village's name. It is the only such place name in the British Isles;Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, Quebec, shares the distinction of having an exclamation mark in its name.

Westward Ho

Westward Ho may refer to:

Fiction

Places

Westward Ho! (novel)

Westward Ho! is an 1855 British historical novel by Charles Kingsley. The novel is set in the Elizabethan era, and follows the adventures of Amyas Leigh who sets sail with Francis Drake and other privateers to the Caribbean, where they battle with the Spanish.

Plot

Set initially in Bideford in North Devon during the reign of Elizabeth I, Westward Ho! follows the adventures of Amyas Leigh, an unruly child who as a young man follows Francis Drake to sea. Amyas loves local beauty Rose Salterne, as does nearly everyone else. Much of the novel involves the kidnap of Rose by a Spaniard.

Amyas spends time in the Caribbean seeking gold, and eventually returns to England at the time of the Spanish Armada, finding his true love, the beautiful Indian maiden Ayacanora, in the process; yet fate had blundered and brought misfortune into Amyas's life, for not only had he been blinded by a freak bolt of lightning at sea, but he also loses his brother Frank Leigh and Rose Salterne, who were caught by the Spaniards and burnt at the stake by the Inquisition.

Westward Ho! (1940 film)

Westward Ho! is a 1940 British public information film about the evacuation of children during the Second World War, directed by Thorold Dickinson. At the time, evacuation was a controversial policy, and the film was produced with the aim of building support for it. Westward Ho! was the first of a series of five-minute propaganda films distributed weekly to cinemas between 1940 and 1942.

Synopsis

A group of schoolchildren from London are preparing for evacuation. After a medical examination, they meet at a railway station, uncertain of their destination. The train arrives and their journey to the countryside begins. Many of them have never seen the countryside before, and enjoy looking out of the carriage windows during the trip.

Eventually, the children arrive at their destination, the Devon town of Torquay. After registration at a local school building, the children are handed over to the families who will be looking after them for the near future.

The following day, the children write to their parents to inform them of their new addresses and begin settling in to their new school classes. They also start to adjust to other aspects of life in Torquay, including working in the fields and playing on the beach.

Westward Ho! (clipper)

Westward Ho! was an 1852 extreme clipper which made two very fast passages to San Francisco, 100 days from Boston and New York. She had a very close race with Neptune's Car, and ended her days in the coolie trade.

Construction

Westward Ho! had long, very sharp ends, with concave lines. Her frame was of white oak, and planking of hard pine. She was copper fastened, with yellow metal sheathing. The hull was painted black, the inside buff relieved with white, the waterways blue.

The finish work below decks was quite fancy, with rosewood, mahogany, carvings, gold ornamentation, and paneled mirrors. Some of the cabins had stained glass windows with Venetian blinds. The figurehead was a Native American warrior giving chase.

Voyages

Race to San Francisco

Westward Ho! made a very fast passage to San Francisco between January 12 and April 22, 1855, under Capt. Johnson. She arrived in San Francisco just 100 days and 18 hours from Boston Light. One day later, the clipper Neptune’s Car left Sandy Hook, New York. She arrived in San Francisco one day after Westward Ho!, after a passage of 100 days, 23½ hours.

Westward Ho (play)

Westward Ho (or Ho!, or Hoe) is an early Jacobean era stage play, a satire and city comedy by Thomas Dekker and John Webster that was first published in 1607. It had an unusual impact in that it inspired Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston to respond to it by writing Eastward Ho, the famously controversial 1605 play that landed Jonson and Chapman in jail.

Date

The consensus of scholarly opinion recognises that Dekker's and Webster's play must have been on the stage before the end of 1604 to have inspired the reaction of Eastward Ho early the following year; a few have argued for a date as early as 1603. Westward Ho was entered into the Stationers' Register on 2 March 1605, though the entry in the Register is crossed out and marked "vacat."

Performance and publication

The play was published in quarto in 1607 by the bookseller John Hodgets; the title page of the quarto states that the play was acted by the Children of Paul's, one of the companies of boy actors that constituted a distinctive feature of that era. Eastward Ho was acted by the other troupe of boy actors, then called the Children of the Queen's Revels, generating a kind of theatrical debate between two sets of dramatists and two acting companies. And Dekker and Webster would in turn answer Eastward Ho with their Northward Ho later in 1605 – completing a trilogy of "directional plays."