Modern Life: In Exeter, in England’s west country, the local paper reports that 72 year old Mr Charles Steele has been fined 10 shillings at the Police Court for leaving his motor car unattended in Queen street for nearly an hour… thereby causing an obstruction. His plea that he was engaged on important business appears to have made no impression on the local magistrates. [Western Times].
http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_events/1915-this-week.php
BORN TODAY: in Bristol – Mary Fedden, British artist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Fedden
Transportation: Ten die in a rail crash in the English Midlands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weedon_rail_crashes
BORN TODAY: in South River, New Jersey – Alexander Francis Wojciechowicz, NFL Hall of Famer.
http://www.nndb.com/people/340/000166839/
Urban Life: in Exeter, England, the Exeter and Plymough Gazette reports that wagonner Arthur Brealy has been fined 7 shillings and sixpence for dangerous driving of his horse and waggon laden with hay (not keeping in to the left side), resulting in a collision with the post-office mail motor van.
http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_events/1915-this-week.php
War from the air: Six civilians die and twenty three are injured in a Zeppelin raid on the town of Woodbridge, near England’s east coast.
http://www.ucs.ac.uk/About/Events/Event-details-page.aspx?id=23807
BORN TODAY: in Calcutta, in British India – Shaista Akhtar Banu Suhrawardy, better known as Begum Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah – Pakistani politician, diplomat and author, and the first muslim and Asian woman to receive a doctorate from the University of London [wikipedia].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaista_Suhrawardy_Ikramullah
Public Transport: In the City of Exeter, in England, the citizens are “bickering” about the cost of tram fares:
“The discussion at the Exeter City Council meeting on tram fares will have enlightened many people, and at least one journalist in the city. I ventured to suggest, when the matter was under discussion some time ago, that the halfpenny fares, which are the cause so much bickering, should be withdrawn altogether. It was affirmed that this could not done. But it can be, because under Act of Parliament the lowest fare which the Council need accept is one penny. And I am still of the opinion that the wisest and fairest plan all round would be charge the penny. Under the present arrangement there are many who reap mean advantage, and large numbers who should benefit before others are prevented from doing because they have clean, instead of dirty, clothes. The distances which people are carried thoroughly merit a minimum charge one penny. Besides, the trams are a business, and not a charitable, concern, and should yield more profit than they do to the city.”
[Exeter and Plymouth Gazette].
http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_events/1915-this-week.php
Early flight: William E Boeing takes his first ever flight. Or does he?
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=367
Early motor traffic: The automobile is conquering the mountains of the North-West…
http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/kiehl/id/195
Global postal services: … and postcards are bringing the Sphinx to Brisbane.
http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/ww1/2014/09/22/winifred-corkling-postcard-album/
BORN TODAY:
~ in Gradel’s restaurant, in Whitechapel, in the heart of London’s East End – The Ben Uri Gallery.
http://www.benuri.org.uk/public/?history-of-ben-uri
~ In Australia – the Commonwealth Lighthouse Service, now operating as Lighthouses of Australia Inc, providing “an extensive network of aids to navigation around the coastline… comprising nearly 490 aids at approximately 380 sites”
BORN TODAY: in Portsmouth, England – Alice Jessie Fawsitt: teenager with dreams of flying; private pilot frustrated by wartime restrictions; WW2 Civil Air Guard; secretary and later Senior Public Relations Officer for the British Overseas Airways Corporation.
BORN TODAY:
~ at the New York naval shipyard – USS Arizona, a Pennsylvania class battleship sent to the bottom of Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941, aged 26, along with 1,177 US servicemen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=USS_Arizona_(BB-39)
~ In Brooklyn – the Fourth Avenue subway, with trains running to Coney Island.
http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Brooklyn’s_Subway_Will_Open_Today_(Fourth_Ave._Line)_(1915)
~ in the Bronx – Julius Schwartz, pioneer comic editor.
http://www.nndb.com/people/835/000044703/
~ In Harlem – Henry Christian LeTang, choreographer.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.obituaries/kOx5hNexzGA
Gallipoli: Australian soldier Herbert Reynolds from Victoria records in his diary one of war’s quieter days, for him at least:
“A T.B.Destroyer went in close to Kaba Tepe this morning and shelled the enemy tranches from a while, she returned again this afternoon and shelled the enemy away inland, on this occasion the enemy fired at her with their field gun from behind Kaba Tepe but did not succeed in hitting her. I managed to buy 3 tins of milk one shilling each from some sailors on the beach, we get very little here other than our rations which are bully beef, biscuits, cheese and bacon, so anything is very welcome as change. The sea has been rather rough today. At about 11pm some of us sat and watched heavy action down at Cape Helles from the top of the ridge above our camp, the flash of guns and explosion of the shells proved that the artillery on both sides was very heavily engaged and the start shells and flares illuminated the whole ridge from Achi Baba to the Cape”.
[Australian War Memorial blog – the diary of H.V. Reynolds]
https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2010/06/14/monday-14th-june-1915-diary-of-hv-reynolds/
“The general strike order for all union employes of the surface and elevated railway lines in Chicago became effective at I2 o’clock last night. Since 4 o’clock this morning not a wheel has turned on the 1200 miles of elevated and surface tracks within the city limits. The decision to make the strike order effective was reached shortly before midnight after a day spent by the officers of the unions and officials of the railway companies ln a vain exchange of notes and parleys looking to arbitration. Half a million men and women, upon business bent, found themselves without their usual means of transportation this morning.”
http://idnc.library.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/illinois?a=d&d=CLW19150614.2.24
BORN TODAY: in New York, New York: Herman Wouk – Pulitzer Prize winner.
Happy Centenary, Mr Wouk!
On the (industrial) front: “Commercial Motor Magazine”, introducing a review for its readers of the very latest model of Dennis Ambulance, as delivered to the Wimbledon Fire Brigade, reflects (by way of preamble) on the heavy demand for ambulances to serve on the Western Front:
“There have been hundreds of first-class ambulances sent out to the Front, but there have additionally been many more despatched which were very ill suited for the strenuous work, for which they were intended. This has been a golden opportunity for many people to dispose of second-hand chassis of pleasure-car types of doubtful age and record. The casualties amongst ambulances have been very serious indeed. Then again, there has been a good deal of seeking after publicity by individuals who have been anxious to identify themselves with the sending out of the Zebediah or the Mord-D.11’1y ambulances. We have had very little to say of all this activity, preferring rather not to throw cold water on all this endeavour which, in spite of its shortcomings, has included much well-meant kindness.”
http://archive.commercialmotor.com/article/27th-may-1915/15/the-latest-dennis-ambulance
onehundredyearsagotoday 