Midlands
West Midlands comprises the shire counties of :
(1) Staffordshire,
(2) Warwickshire and
(3) Worcestershire (with their respective districts),
the unitary counties of
(4) Herefordshire and
(5) Shropshire,
the metropolitan boroughs of
(6) Birmingham,
(7) Coventry,
(8) Dudley,
(9) Sandwell,
(10) Solihull,
(11) Walsall and
(12) Wolverhampton,
and the unitary boroughs of
(13) Stoke-on-Trent and
(14) Telford and Wrekin.
The East Midlands comprises the shire counties of :
(15) Derbyshire,
(16) Leicestershire,
(17) Lincolnshire,
(18) Northamptonshire and
(19) Nottinghamshire (with their respective districts)
and the unitary county of
(20) Rutland.
The two regions have a combined area of 11,053 sq mi (28,631 km²).
We are lead to believe wealth and fame are available to all in a democratic society, through what we choose to do. In earlier times things were not so different, the gates to wealth were guarded, new wealth was distinguished from old money and property and shares were inherited over centuries. This was the basis and support of a class system, with some echos in "location location location" in the world today.
Middle England counties
John Ward, 1st Viscount Dudley and Ward (6 March 1704 – 6 May 1774), known as John Ward until 1740 and as the 6th Baron Ward from 1740 to 1763, was a British peer and politician.
Ward was the son of William Ward and the grandson of the Hon. William Ward (d. 1714), second son of Humble Ward, 1st Baron Ward. His mother was Mary, daughter of the Hon. John Grey, younger son of Henry Grey, 1st Earl of Stamford. He inherited the Willingsworth estate and the rest of the manor of Sedgley on the death of his father in 1720, and the entailedportion of the Dudley estates on the death of his cousin William Ward, 5th Baron Ward in 1740.
He was returned to Parliament for Newcastle under Lyme in 1727, a seat he held until 1734. In 1740 he succeeded his second cousin as the sixth Baron Ward and entered the House of Lords. He was further honoured in 1763 when he was created 1st Viscount Dudley and Ward, of Dudley in the County of Worcester.
Ward married firstly Anna Maria, daughter of Charles Bourchier, in 1723. He married secondly Mary, daughter of John Carver, in 1745. There were children from both marriages. Ward died in May 1774, aged 70, and was succeeded by his son from his first marriage, John. His son from his second marriage, William (who succeeded in the viscountcy in 1788), was the father of John Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley, Foreign Secretary from 1827 to 1828. Mary, Viscountess Dudley and Ward, survived her husband by eight years and died in 1782.
From earlies times the King ruled through a form of senate house. In Europe through the Middle Ages through Renaissance and Reformation the King and parliament controlled state affairs, and one might say "in their own image" The King had the wavering support of nobles and peers, men who advised the King and conducted affairs of state. Loyal family lines could demonstrate a long history of distinguished service, generations of leadership in public service, trading military rank and a role in running the country under successive Kings.
The wealth nobles and peers accumulated and could buy and sell positions with income and titles and lands attached. They were the very very good and the taints of Machiavellian dispositions, yet they possessed entrepreneurial skills and took investment risk, financed ventures bringing royalties to the Empire; they were industrialist at home and merchants abroad. Established landholding families were well educated, and titled men and women served in the dispensing of justice, debating the rights and wrongs of those barbarous times in Parliament, in defending the Empire from it's internal enemies and in wars with neighbouring Kingdoms. They were benefactors in the arts, contributors to charitable works and community affairs, expanding education opportunities to the people who served them.
Administrators appointed house staff and workers, as well as clerics who maintained records of births, deaths, taxes, legal actions. The records included information on wealth, inheritance and titles of high office, contributions to parliamentary process, military campaigns, colonial governance and the ancestry records that could prove their entitlements.
Today the internet makes these archival records available freely and includes magazines and books of the periods. We can read of debates over slavery, war strategy and conquests in colonies in East and West Indies and wars with France, Spain, Portugal and Dutch; the formation and governance of nations born out of conflicts in the New World, in Australia, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean and independent States of America. Political decisions during this cycle of England's naval dominance, their military action and colonial administration will always raise controversial
issues for thought; it is inherent in religious schism and political unrest. Such were the roots of establishing a United Kingdom of the mixed races in Britain and the colonies.
Elsham is a village and civil parish in North Lincolnshire, England. Elsham Wolds was the RAF base where Allan Egan was posted in 1942 and from where Lancaster bomber were flown.